


CAUSES Ar 

IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



EDWIN W. MORSE 



hi 









»l«'r'''',%^V'r.'.'^' ■<■■'■■ ' '. ' 'fli 

%^^m'^yi'-m- r ■'■'■'4 

i^i^if ^''-■■/■..ni^t A'.,ti ^ -''■.■fir, k i ; ^„.' ,. 4''.^ -. .«' .? .-v ., Vjia 



':u:^'mMr^ 




Class 
Book.. 




Copyright 1^^ 



CORfRIGHT BEPOSIIi 



« 



Wf 



i 



CAUSES AND EFFECTS 
IN AMERICAN HISTORY 







%i 






; 


■->iiK 


teii 




> 


ii^ 


fc^* ««■. 




^v^*^^^ 


jy " AP"*! ii__^ 


m^^ ^" 




N^ .\~^^~~^ 


*^«3^^^^"*^ 


^'■^^^^■mgi^ 




■ >^ 


rx 


Vi 




J 


^ 


^^^^BflPw"^'" >v 




m 


w 


BP^ 




^^ 


^^Bli^^^^^^^^^^l 


wtm 


^^-. , ■ 


^1» 


|g 


^^^^^^^^^^^^E^ 
^^^^^^H^^ 




"^ 


m 


^ 



SANTA MARIA," FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS'S FLEET, IN DUPLICATE. 

Arriving at New York from Spain, in i8q3, to take part in the 
World's Columbian Exposition. 



CAUSES AND EFFECTS 
IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

THE STORY OF THE ORIGIN 
AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 



BY 

EDWIN W. MORSE 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, FACSIMILES, AND MAPS 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1912 



E'7i 



Copyright, 1912, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Published September, 1912 







TO 

EVERY LOVER OF HIS COUNTRY 

WHO HAS PRIDE IN ITS PAST 

AND FAITH IN ITS FUTURE 



PREFACE 

Few things are drier or duller than the bare facts of his- 
tory. Few things are more interesting than the reasons 
why great events happened as they did and why the con- 
sequences of these happenings were what they were. Few 
things are more difficult than to prevent a multiplicity of 
details from crowding into an historical picture and from 
obscuring what is essential, significant, important. 

This narrative ignores details. It deals not so much 
with facts as with causes and effects — with the large cur- 
rents of thought, feeling, and action which from generation 
to generation, especially through the economic and intel- 
lectual influences of each period, have modified and shaped 
the destinies of the American people. The purpose of the 
book is thus to supply to the imagination a key to the real 
meaning of the evolutions, often complex and apparently 
confusing, of the historical pageant as it passes across the 
stage. 

If this purpose has been accomplished with the sim- 
plicity, clearness, and accuracy for which the author has 
striven throughout, the book should prove equally service- 
able as an introduction to American history which, by 
indicating its larger relations of cause and effect, will in- 
spire younger readers with a zeal for further and more 
intimate study, and as an interpretation of American his- 
tory which may give a new meaning to facts already famil- 



Vlll 



PREFACE 



Jar to older readers. Both of these classes of readers will 
find that the emphasis in this account of the development 
of the nation has been laid not upon the evolution of politi- 
cal parties, except in so far as parties became the instru- 
ments for the advancement of great political, economic, or 
moral ideas, but upon the important parts which intel- 
lectual and religious freedom, industrial and commercial 
activity, and even literature and the fine arts, not to include 
other kindred influences, have played in shaping the life 
of the people. 

A glance at the illustrations will suffice to show that 
they have been selected solely for their historical value as 
a pictorial commentary, contemporaneous whenever pos- 
sible, upon the more salient features of the narrative. 

E. W. M. 



CONTENTS 



DISCOVERERS 

Why the Northmen migrated from Norway to Iceland 

How Eric the Red came to discover Greenland 

Leif, Eric's son, reaches Vinland (probably Nova Scotia) by 

accident . ........ 

Why no effort was made to extend the discoveries . 
Marco Polo and others bring news from the far East 
Necessity of a water route to Asia .... 

Efforts of Prince Henry of Portugal to solve the problem 
Columbus turns his eyes to the west .... 

His four voyages in search of Cipango (Japan) and Cathay 

(China) ......... 

He dies without realizing that he has discovered a new hemi 

sphere ......... 

Vasco da Gama rounds Africa and reaches the Indies . 
Voyages of the Cabots made the basis for English claims 
Origin of the name America ...... 



II 

EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

Spain at the height of her power .... 
Results of the expeditions of Balboa and Magellan 
Discoveries of Cartier and Drake .... 
Conquest of Mexico and Peru by Cortes and Pizarro 
Explorations of De Vaca, De Soto, and Coronado 
French interest in exploration half-hearted . 
Voyages of Verrazzano and Gomez 
Cartier's voyages establish the French claim to Canada 
Decline in the energy of Spanish exploration . 



lO 

II 



12 
12 
13 
13 
13 
14 
14 
16 
16 



CONTENTS 



Massacre of the French PIuKuenots in Florida by Menendez 
de Aviles ...... 

Attitude of Spain toward heretics . 
English enterprise under Elizabeth 
What Hawkins and Drake accomplished 
Influence of Hakluyt's collections of narratives 
Effects of the destruction of the Spanish Armada 



16 
18 
18 
18 
20 
20 



III 



COLONISTS 

Two main streams flow from England ..... 

Early Jamestown settlers in search of gold or a way to the 
South Sea (Pacific) 

John Rolfe develops tobacco culture ..... 

Negro slave labor introduced by a Dutch vessel 

Influence of these incidents upon the civilization of \irginia 
and Maryland ........ 

Motives of the Pilgrims in leaving Holland .... 

Sailing for \'irginia, chance carries them to Massachusetts . 

The Puritans leave England to make homes and to secure 
religious freedom ........ 

Causes of the Cavalier migration to \'irginia 

The descendants of these families 

The Dutch, following Henry Hudson, reveal a greater genius 
for trade than for government 

The English take possession of New Amsterdam in 1664 

Settlement of Maryland and Pennsylvania .... 

Both possess proprietary forms of government 

Turbulence and disorder in the Carolinas .... 

The \'irginia colonists stay in the Church of England . 

Creat influence of the Congregational church and ministry 
in New England 

Desire for peace and quiet the cause of religious persecutions 

The Flartford and New Haven colonies independent common- 
wealths .......... 

Penn and his Quaker followers ...... 

Influence of Roger Williams and Penn with tin- Indians 

Causes of Bacon's rebellion ....... 



22 
22 

2 2 

24 



26 
26 



28 
28 
28 
20 
20 

31 
31 

32 
32 



CONTENTS xi 



PAGE 



Importance of the alliance of the Dutch, and later the 

English, with the Five Nations . . . . .32 

A bulwark against the French and their Algonquin allies from 

the north ......... 33 

Educational matters in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New 

Netherland ......... 33 

Harvard College founded in 1636 ...... 33 

IV 

NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

.Motives of the French in establishing settlements in Canada 35 
Their policy as carried out by Champlain and his successors 35 
Character and achievements of Champlain .... 36 

How the alliance between the Five Nations and the Dutch 

was brought about ........ 36 

Marquette and Joliet reach the Mississippi River . . -38 
By floating to its mouth La Salle, in 1682, establishes the 

French claim to the water-shed of the Mississippi . 40 

Quebec for a few years in the hands of the English ... 40 
Effects in America of the wars between England and France 

from 1688 to 1763 ........ 42 

Efforts of Count Frontenac and his successors to keep the 
Five Nations neutral and the New England tribes hostile 
to the English ........ 43 

The massacre at Deerfield, Mass. ...... 44 

William Pitt the elder plans to break down the French bar- 
rier to the westward expansion of the English colonies . 44 
George Washington's first appearance on the historical stage 44 
The French power finally broken by the fall of Quebec and 

Montreal ......... 45 

V 

GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

Consequences of the revolution in 1688 placing William and 

Mary on the English throne ...... 47 

English origin of the witchcraft delusion .... 47 

Royal governors under William . . . . . .48 



xii CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Causes of annoyance and irritation 50 

Pennsylvania and Maryland under proprietary governments 

until the Revolutionary War . . . . . -51 
Diversified pursuits of the people . . . . . -52 

Changes in the social, religious, and political life of the people 52 
Cause of the beginning of the decline in influence of the New 

England ministry ......'. 

Reaction from the severity of Puritan rule . 

The "Great Revival" seeks to bring men back to the old 

standards ........ 

Presbyterianism establishes itself in the Valley of Virginia 
Advances in popular education ..... 

Private instruction in Virginia ..... 

Newspapers begin publication in Boston, Philadelphia, New 

York, and elsewhere ....... 56 

Foundations of institutions of higher learning laid . . 56 

VI 

RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

No precedents to guide the King and his ministers . . 59 
The British answer to the "Boston massacre" ... 59 
Danger to the King of yielding to the colonists ... 60 
Unable to understand that principle, not expediency, gov- 
erned the Americans ....... 60 

Difference between the Stamp Act and the Townshcnd acts 62 

The aim of Lord North's bills .62 

New York, at first wavering, sides finally with her sister 

provinces ......... 64 

Massachusetts and Virginia stand together .... 64 

Patrick Henry an eloquent leader 64 

All the colonies make common cause with Massachusetts 

after the port of Boston is closed ..... 64 

Samuel Adams the creator of the bond of union ... 65 

The first Continental Congress meets 65 

Why the colonists as a whole had at this time no desire for 

independence ......... 65 

Viewsof Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington on independence 66 

Separation finally accepted as the only solution of the problem 66 

Samuel Adams always working for that end .... 66 



CONTENTS 



xiu 



VII 



INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

Evacuation of Boston by the British . . . . . 
Washington's resourcefulness after defeat in the battle of 

Long Island ..... 
Significance of Trenton and Princeton . 
Effect of Paine's Common Sense 
The Declaration of Independence . 
The victory of Saratoga leads to the treaty with France 
And makes any further incursion from Canada impossible 
Washington's share in the Saratoga campaign 
Compensations for the battles of the Brandywine and Ger- 

mantown ..... 

French help secured under the treaty . 

Charles Lee's treachery at Monmouth . 

Washington's two strategic principles . 

What was accomplished by this policy . 

Military inefficiency of Howe and Clinton 

Energy and ability of General Greene . 

Washington's plan to entrap Cornwallis 

Aid from the French fleet 

How the surrender at Yorktown was brought about 

Treaty of peace signed ...... 

Part played in the war by American privateers 
Paul Jones's exploit in the Bonhovime Richard 
Character of Washington ..... 

The obstacles which he overcame .... 



PAGE 
69 

69 
70 
70 
70 

72 

72 
72 

72 

74 
74 
75 
75 
76 
76 
78 
78 
79 
79 
79 
80 
80 
80 



1/ 



VIII 

THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 



The situation at the end of the war ..... 82 

Changes in the direction of greater freedom .... 83 

Prohibition of the slave trade and gradual emancipation fore- 
shadowed ......... 83 

Origin and growth of the idea of federation .... 84 

Why the federal union proposed by Franklin in 1754 was 

rejected 84 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



Defects of the Articles of Confederation 

The states jealous of their rights .... 

Washington's plan for a national system 

How Maryland took the leadership toward this goal 

The Ordinance of 17S7 a result .... 

Its provisions and its significance .... 

Causes which made the Ordinance of 17S7 possible 

The fear of anarchy or civil war .... 

The Constitutional Convention called to avert this danger 



IX 



UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

The Constitutional Convention a representative body 

The result of its deliberations a remarkable document 

Important provisions based on compromises . 

The Federalist essays as an interpretation of the Constitution 

All the states finally ratify the Constitution . 

The Federalist party win the first election 

Organization of the new government 

Hamilton's qualities as Secretary of the Treasury 

His financial and economic policy 

What he hoped to accomplish 

The Republican party favors a strict construction of the 
Constitution ........ 

Effects of foreign affairs on both parties 

The power of the Federalists begins to wane . 

Jay negotiates a treaty with England in order to avert wa 

American commerce stimulated as a consequence . 

The Alien and Sedition laws the crowning blunder of the Fed- 
eralists ......... 

Purpose of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions . 

Demoralized, the Federalists lose the election of iSoo 

Far-reaching effects of the invention of the cotton-gin 

Cotton mills and other industries established 

Application of steam power to boats 

Rapid increase in population .... 

New states admitted to the federal Union 

The centre of population moves westward 



CONTENTS 



AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

The purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson . 
Jefferson's passion for peace .... 

New influences of the American democracy . 
What the Louisiana purchase embraced 
Lewis and Clark cross the continent 
Captain Gray discovers and names the Columbia 
The expeditions of Captain Pike 
Fulton drives the Clermont to Albany and back 
power ....... 

Steam power revolutionizes inland water transport 

The Barbary pirates are subdued . 

New England whale fisheries .... 

American vessels in the foreign trade 
Character of the exports and imports 
The population in 1810 . 





PACE 




loS 




106 




107 




107 




108 


River 


no 




III 


by steam 






112 


ation 


112 




112 




114 




114 




IIS 




116 



XI 

THE WAR OF l8l2 AND ITS CAUSES 

Attitude of Jefferson toward the merchant marine 

Indignities inflicted upon .'Kmerican sailors and vessels 

England's desire to cripple American commerce 

Results of her policy of impressing American seamen 

England's defense of this policy 

How American shipping suffered . 

The object of the embargo .... 

The Non-intercourse law takes its place 

Popular resentment increases 

War is declared ...... 

Victories of American frigates 
Reasons for American superiority on the sea . 
The battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain 
The battle of New Orleans .... 

Influences which brought about peace . 
Ravages of American privateers 
The Federalists as a party disappear 



117 
117 
117 
117 
118 
119 
119 
120 
120 
120 
122 
123 
124 
124 
124 

125 

126 



CONTENTS 



XII 



INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

The tide of migration sets westward 

The Cumberland Road constructed 

The Erie Canal completed in 1825 

Other canal systems built 

Railroad construction after 1830 . 

Locomotive engines come into use . 

Increase of population in the West and Southwest 

The tide of immigration begins to tlow heavily 

Causes and quality of this immigration . 

Numbers and destinations of these immigrants 

Inventions and new industries 

Expansion of the national domain . 

The Floridas purchased and Texas wins its independence 

Causes and results of the war with Mexico 

Gold is discovered in California 

New states received into the federal Union 

Tariff legislation from 1816 to 1846 

Andrew Jackson represents the new democracy 

Economic changes in the South 

The panic of 1837 and its causes . 

The Monroe Doctrine enunciated . 



XIII 



HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

Activity of American shipping interests after the War of 181 2 

Packet ships for north Atlantic service . 

A prosperous decade for American shipping 

English jealousy and alarm ... 

American ships make world-wide voyages 

The New England whalemen ... 

Causes of the decline in the whaling industry 

Steam power applied to vessels for transatlantic service 

The Cunard line established . 

Ericsson invents the screw propeller 



CONTENTS 

American and British steamships . 
Congress changes its attitude regarding subsidies 
Disasters to the Collins line steamships . 
Tonnage figures of American shipping . 
Supremacy of American clipper ships 
Exports chiefly agricultural products 
Causes of the decline in American shipping 
Outlook for the merchant marine . 
Free materials for shipbuilding 



xvu 

PAGE 

148 
148 
148 



XIV 

GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

Early sensitiveness to English criticism . 
Influences toward literary expression 
Scott, Byron, and Goethe .... 
Effects of foreign studies and travel on American si 

writers ....... 

Currents of new ideas set in motion 
Irving the pioneer in American fiction . 
Cooper wins a wide audience by his novels 
His characteristics as a writer 
Poe's characters and technique in his stories . 
Hawthorne's romances ..... 

Two Years Before the Mast and U)iclc Tom's CahL 
Bryant, poet and journalist .... 

Poe's philosophy of the art of poetry 
Lowell's most characteristic verse . 
Longfellow and Whittier .... 

The poems of Emerson ..... 

Four historical writers of distinction 
Bancroft and Prescott ..... 

Motley and Parkman ..... 

The breakfast-table philosophy of Holmes and th 

Lowell ....... 

Permanent value of Emerson's essays 







• 155 


. 




156 






156 


cholars anc 








156 






157 


. 




157 


. 




158 


. 




158 






150 






160 


n 




161 






161 


, 




162 


. 




162 


. 




164 


. 




165 






i6s 






165 






166 


e essays 


of 


166 
168 



XVlll 



CONTENTS 



XV 

SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

Reasons for the attitude of the South toward slavery 

Raising of slaves an important industry. 

Attempts to legalize the African slave trade 

Extent of the domestic trade in slaves . 

Financial interest of the South in slavery 

Importance and influence of the institution 

The Missouri Compromise 

Rise of the abolitionists under Garrison 

Southern resentment natural 

Attempts of the South to extend slavery 

Clay's Compromise of 1850 . 

Northern sympathizers with slavery 

The Kansas-Nebraska act a turning-point 

Kansas becomes a battle-ground 

Causes of the change in northern sentiment 

Origin of the Republican party 

Fremont defeated in 1856 

New anti-slavery leaders appear 

Crimes against life and property in Kansas 

Assault of Brooks upon Sumner 

Decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case 

Object and results of John Brown's raid 

Significance of the Lincoln-Douglas debates 

The slave owners desert Douglas . 

Nomination and election of Lincoln 

Why secession was inevitable from the point of view of the 

South ...... 

The choice between slavery and the Union 

Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederate States 

of America ..... 
Some compromise still looked for . 
Peace-at-any-price leaders in the North . 
Lincoln makes the preservation of the Union the issue 
Results of this master-stroke of statesmanship 



CONTENTS 



XVI 



CIVIL WAR 

The colossal task entrusted to Lincoln . 

The government unprepared for war 

Buchanan merely marks time .... 

At first Union forces out-generalled and out -fought 
McClellan as a commander ..... 

Different conditions in the West .... 

Grant at Fort Donelson and Shiloh 

Capture of New Orleans and surrender of Vicksburg divide 

the South ......... 

The Chattanooga campaign . 
Grant made commander-in-chief 
Menace of English or French intervention 
English sympathy with the South . 
The Trent affair ..... 

Effect of the Emancipation Proclamation 

Charles Francis Adams in England 

Anglo-Confederate commerce destroyers 

Results of the fight between the Moiiilor and the Mcr. 

Farragut at Mobile Bay 

Renomination of Lincoln in 1864 . 

The situation critical .... 

McClellan nominated by the Democrats 
Opportune victories for the Republicans 
Lincoln re-elected ..... 

Causes of the collapse of the Confederacy 

Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House 

English intervention a costly delusion . 

The South exhausted through starvation 

Generals who distinguished themselves . 

Davis's character and temperament 

Cost of the war to the North and the South 

Relative numbers and losses . 

Forces more evenly matched than is generally supposed 

Fruits of the war . 

Assassination of Lincoln 

His character .... 

The Gettysburg address 



PAGE 
187 
187 
188 
188 
189 

190 

192 
192 
192 

193 
194 

194 

195 
196 
196 
196 
198 
198 
198 
199 
199 

200 
200 
202 
203 
203 
204 
206 
206 
207 
207 



CONTENTS 



XVII 



RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

Demoralizing effects of the war 

Why the ballot was given to the negro .... 

Ex-Confederates believed to be enemies of the Union 

The danger a real one to the men of that day 

The "carpet-baggers" and "scalawags" in control in the 

South ......... 

Restoration of white leadership ..... 

Tweed and the Tammany ring ..... 

The gas ring in Philadelphia ...... 

Grant the prey of unscrupulous schemers 

The whiskey ring frauds ...... 

General Belknap forced to resign from the cabinet 
Financial panic of 1873 and its causes .... 

The Credit Mobilier scandal ...... 

Blaine's relations with railway corporations fatal to his polit 

ical ambition ........ 

Creditable acts of Grant's administrations 

The award of the Geneva Tribunal .... 

Issues in the Hayes-Tilden campaign .... 

How the South justifies intimidation .... 



XVIII 



POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

A protective tariff an issue in i860 

Industrial interests favor a high tariff 

Democratic support for a high tariff 

Cleveland's efforts to reduce duties 

The Wilson bill and the Mills bill . 

Republican extravagance 

Power of business interests in regulating the t 

The Dingley bill and the Payne-Aldrich bill 

A board of tariff experts created 

The contest for sound money 

The West and the South demand more money 

Popularity of the greenback .... 



CONTENTS 



XXI 



Legislation in favor of silver 

The Bland-Allison bill 

International bi-metallism .... 

The Sherman Silver Purchase bill 

Cleveland buys gold to protect the government's 

Other causes of the panic of 1893 . 

Defeat of Bryan and free silver in 1896 

Revival of business in McKinley's administration 

National finances placed on a gold basis in 1900 

End of the agitation for free silver 

The panic of 1907 and its causes . 

The need of a new monetary system 

The purchase of Alaska and its results . 

Venezuela and the Monroe Doctrine 

Cleveland's attitude in this affair . 

A great danger happily averted 

Operation of the Pendleton Civil Service law 

Dr. Charles W. Eliot on the need of further reform 

President Taft's recommendations . 

The pohticians in the way of the reform 

Inventive ingenuity of the people . 

The telephone and the electric light 

Influence of other inventions . 

Aeroplanes and dirigible balloons . 



PAGE 
229 
230 
230 
230 
231 
232 
232 
232 
232 
232 
232 

233 
234 
234 
235 
236 
236 
236 
238 
238 
238 
239 
239 



XIX 



BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

The conflict between industrial combination and competition 

Purpose of the Interstate Commerce law 

Rise of industrial combinations or trusts 

The Sherman Anti-trust bill and its object 

Ineffective suits brought under it . 

Effects of the war with Spain upon the business imagination 

A great movement toward industrial consolidation 

Technical conditions all favorable ..... 

Combinations of railway systems ..... 

Enormous financial resources concentrated 

The dangers in the situation . . . . . 



240 
240 
241 
241 
242 
243 
243 
243 
244 
245 
245 



xxu 



CONTENTS 



Roosevell's work in averting these dangers 
His remedy for threatened evils 
Suits begun against two great trusts 
Denounced for "interfering with Ijusincss" 
The Anti-trust law generally accepted as salutary 
Causes of the war with Spain 
The blowing up of the Maine 
The Spaniards easily conquered 
Two military lessons of the war 
The anti-imperialistic agitation 
The United States becomes a world-power 
Its influence in Chinese affairs 
Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands 
The Panama Canal ..... 

The United States gives independence to Cuba 
Fate of the new republic still in the balance . 
Roosevelt's restless energy .... 
His work in checking the trusts and in conserving pub 
sources ........ 



245 
246 
246 
248 
248 
248 
249 
250 
250 
250 
252 
252 
253 
253 
254 
256 
256 

257 



XX 



LITERATURE, FINE .ARTS, .AND EDUCATION 

Intellectual and a.'sthetic pursuits not altoget 

A few of Mark Twain's books noteworthy 

Whitman's place still in doubt 

A group of historians .... 

Works in scholarship and criticism 

Writers of novels and short stories 

Mr. Howells's literary career . 

Poetry languishes ..... 

.American painters and sculptors 

Interest in art in the middle and far West 

.Advances in architecture 

The future full of promise 

Merchant princes as founders of museums a 

Famous private collections 

Development in music .... 

Stagnation in the drama 



ther neglected 


258 




258 






258 






259 






259 






260 






261 






261 






262 






263 






263 






264 


md a!- 


collectors 


264 
266 
267 
267 



CONTENTS xxiii 

PAGE 

Popular and advanced education ...... 267 

Mr. Rockefeller's and Mr. Carnegie's benefactions . . 268 

Princely gifts from other sources ...... 268 

The public school system of the country .... 270 

Higher education for men and women . . . . .270 

Reasons for the tendency toward industrial and trade schools 271 
Instruction in scientific farming ...... 271 

Athletic sports in the colleges . . . . . .272 

Effects of the increase in the size of colleges and universities 273 
America's contributions to civilization, according to President 

Eliot . . . . ... . . .273 

How the American race-mind has expressed itself . . . 273 



XXI 

SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 



Statistics of the growth of the population 

Total wealth of the nation .... 

Foreign elements in the population 

Sources of foreign immigration 

Destinations of immigrants .... 

Percentages of foreign element in different states 

Drawn to America by the factory system 

Growth of manufacturing interests 

The farms of the country .... 

Not keeping pace with manufactures or population 

The tendency everywhere from the field to the factory . 

More consumers than producers, proportionately, of food 

stuffs ......... 

The remedies — more and better farms .... 

Mineral resources of the country ..... 

Production of iron in Germany, Great Britain, and the United 

States ....... 

Prosperity comes to the South 

Development of manufactures, mining, and diversified farming 

Value of the coastwise fishing industry .... 

Character and value of exports . . . . . 

Exports of manufactured iron and steel 

Nine-tenths of American exports carried in foreign vessels 



275 
275 
276 
276 

277 
277 
278 
278 
279 
280 
280 

282 
282 

283 

283 
284 
284 
286 
286 
287 
287 



xxiv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Economic problems confronting I he country .... 287 

New political ideas ........ 288 

Relations of capital, labor, and society ..... 289 

An encouraging outlook ....... 289 

IXDKX ........... 291 



ILLUSTRATIONS, FAC-SIMILES AND MAPS 

Santa Maria, Flagship of Columbus's Fleet, in Duplicate . Frontispiece 

PACE 

A Viking War-Vessel 2 

The Fleet of Columbus 9 

A Spanish Galleon of the Sixteenth Century 15 

An English Ship of Elizabeth's Time 17 

Fac-simile of the Title-Page of the American Volume of Hakluyt's 

Voyages, Enlarged Edition of 1598-1600 19 

Ruins of the Old Church on the Site of Jamestown, Virginia . . 23 

The Mayflower 25 

Champlain's Picture of Quebec in 1609 37 

Drawing of Niagara Falls by Hennepin, an Associate of La Salle . 39 

Franquelin's Great Map of 1684 ....... 41 

View of the Town of New York, from Brooklyn Heights, in 1679 . 49 

Fragment, in Reduced Fac-simile, of the Boston Ncws-Lctlcr . . 55 

Fac-simile, Reduced, of the Title-Page of Poor Richard's Almanac . 57 

The Boston Massacre 61 

St. John's Church, Richmond, Virginia 63 

Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia 67 

A View of Boston in 1768 ......... 71 

Fac-simile of Rough Draft of Opening Sentences of the Declaration of 

Independence .......... 73 

Old Fort Putnam — The Key to the Defenses at West Point— Showing 

the Magazines .......... 77 

Fac-similes of the Signatures of the American Commissioners to the 

Treaty of Paris .......... 85 

Whitney's Cotton-Gin . loi 

Section of Claik's Map of His Route 109 

.XXV 



xxvi ILLUSTRATIONS, FAC-SIMILES AND MAPS 



The Clermont in Duplicate at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, 1909 

The United States Frigate Constitution .... 

Erie Canal and Aqueduct Over the IMohawk River at Rexford Flats 
New York 



Peter Cooper's Working Model for a Locomotive Engine, 
Thumb ......... 



The Town of Chicago in 1S31 

Packet Ship Montezuma, of 1,070 Tons, of the Black Ball Line 

Clipper Ship Staghound, of 1,535 Tons .... 

Commencement Day at Harvard in Holmes's Time, 1825-1829 

\'iew from the Orchard of Emerson's House at Concord 

Mrs. Stowe's Home in Brunswick, Maine, in which Uncle Tom' 
Cabin was Written 

Part of the Encampment of the Army of the Potomac 

Fac-simile of President Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston 

The McLean House at Appomattox Court House, in which Lee Sur 
rendered to Grant ........ 



Tom 



Review of the Union Armies in Washington, May, 1S64 

Evidence in Ku Kiux Klan Cases before the Congressional Com 
mittee 

The Tammany Ring ......... 

Thomas A. Edison at Work in His Laboratory in Orange, New 
Jersey 

United Slates Troops Landing at Daiquire, Cuba ... 

Battle-Ship Oregon under Way in New York Harbor ... 

Panama Canal — Gatun Upper Locks, East Chamber, Looking South 
December 16, 1910 . ....... 

The Administration Building at the World's Columbian Exposition at 
Chicago in 1893 ......... 

The Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh 

Two Views of a Giant Harvester, as Used in California 

The Price-Campbell Cotton-Picking Machine, Which Does the Work 
of Fifty Persons . . ... 



CAUSES AND EFFECTS 
IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



DISCOVERERS 

How happened it that the Northmen were the discov- 
erers of America? In the last quarter of the ninth cen- 
tury there was a great migration from Norway of petty 
princes and their followers. Having lost their indepen- 
dence in a desperate naval battle in 872, thousands.of them 
chose to abandon Norway rather than remain as vassals 
of the victorious king, Harold Fairhair. 

These men were of a hardy, venturesome, seafaring race. 
They were called Vikings, not because they were kingly 
either in character or in bearing, but because they fitted 
out their ships in the viks, which was the Norwegian name 
for the deep bays that indent the coast of that rugged land. 
The sea had no terrors for them; they knew it in all its 
moods. They had both courage and skill, and sailed these 
wild northern waters without fear. One of their smaller 
fighting vessels for use along the coast was unearthed a 
few years ago in a good state of preservation, and is now 
to be seen at Christiania. 

When these Vikings left their homes in Norway some of 
them sailed away to France, others to England, Scotland 
or Ireland, and more yet to Iceland, across six hundred 
miles of ocean to the west, where they established a colony. 
So many of their fellow-countrymen followed them that 
before many years Iceland had a flourishing population of 

3 



4 DISCOVERERS 

fifty thousand. This colony of Northmen had been in 
existence more than a hundred years when one of its mem- 
bers, Eric the Red, became so dangerous, through the 
murders which he and his followers committed, that he 
was declared an outlaw. The sea offered the easiest and 
surest means of escape to safety, and Eric the Red sailed 
away. 

It was common rumor among the Vikings of that 
day that land of some sort — an island, probably — lay not 
far to the westward, and Eric the Red set out to see for 
himself if this report were true. As a matter of fact, of 
which Eric the Red was of course ignorant, Greenland at 
its nearest point lay only half as far, about two hundred 
and fifty miles, to the northwest as Scotland was to the 
southeast, so that the distance for a Viking ship and a 
Viking crew of those days was comparatively short. Voy- 
ages of five and six hundred miles were common occur- 
rences to the Northmen. They had to make voyages of 
this length in order to find markets for the oil, skins, wool 
and fish in which they traded. 

It was in 983 that Eric the Red set 'sail from Iceland 
and, after a short voyage to the westward, landed on the 
coast of Greenland. With something of the assurance of 
a modern real-estate promoter, he called this snow-and- 
ice-clad country Greenland in the hope and belief that the 
name would be alluring to settlers. He made his home in 
the new land and spent several years in exploring the 
south and west coasts. 

At the end of the century Eric's son Leif , leaving Norway 
as a missionary in the service of King Olaf to proclaim 
Christianity in Greenland, was carried by adverse winds 



LANDS THE NORTHMEN REACHED 5 

far to the south of his destination, and discovered a land 
thereafter called Vinland, where there were "self-sown 
wheat [wild rice] fields and vines growing." Leif made 
his way northward to the Greenland settlements with this 
news, and as a result other ships voyaged to the south, 
to Labrador, Newfoundland and even Nova Scotia, the 
explorers bringing back descriptions of the strange lands 
they had found and of the natives whom they had en- 
countered. Modern scholarship identifies Labrador as 
the Helluland, Newfoundland as the Markland and Nova 
Scotia as the Vinland of the Icelandic sagas in which these 
voyages are described, although there are those who argue 
that the Northmen came further south than Nova Scotia. 
Greenland remained a Norse colony for four centuries, 
but the Northmen made no effort of which there is any 
record to extend their colonies to the south. The reason 
is supposed to have been the lack of weapons with which 
to conquer the natives, whom they first encountered in 
Nova Scotia. The Spaniards and Enghsh of five centuries 
later were better armed. 

Great achievements are never the result of sudden in- 
spiration; they are more often accidental, as in the case 
of Leif Ericsson's discovery of Vinland, or the fruit of pa- 
tient investigation, research, reflection, preparation. Years, 
oftentimes generations, pass before the vision of the poet 
or philosopher is shared by the man of action who has 
energy and scientific knowledge sufiicient to turn the dream 
into deeds. 

It was so with Columbus. Five hundred years were to 
pass after the expedition of the Northmen to Greenland 
and to Nova Scotia before Columbus was to set out from 



6 DISCOVERERS 

Spain on his memorable voyage. But during fully half of 
that long period the way was slowly but surely preparing 
for him. 

The sequence of events during this period is noteworthy. 
In the middle of the thirteenth century two venturesome 
Franciscan friars, returning from a journey to the Far 
East, brought to Europe the first news that an open ocean 
lay to the east of Cathay, as China was called. Toward 
the end of the same century Marco Polo and his brother 
returned to Venice after an absence of twenty-four years, 
with marvellous stories of the wealth and splendor of the 
cities of Cathay, India, Cipango, as Japan was called in 
those days, and of the spice-growing islands off their coasts. 

This wonderful news inflamed the imagination and 
aroused the cupidity of all Europe. The brisk and highly 
profitable overland trade which the merchants of Venice, 
Genoa and other cities thereupon established with India 
and China, and which was carried on for years, was rudely 
interrupted, however, when, in 1453, Constantinople fell 
into the hands of the Turks, who thereafter barred the way 
to Asia. 

It became necessary, therefore, to find a new route, and 
the necessity produced the man^Prince Henry of Portugal, 
a famous patron of learning in his day, who, in the hope 
of solving this problem, gathered around him and trained 
a school of navigators. One of their number was Christo- 
pher Columbus, the Genoese. He sailed in these Portu- 
guese ships down the coast of Africa nearly to the equator, 
and earlier he had voyaged, perhaps in a trading- vessel 
from Bristol, England, to Iceland and beyond- -observing, 
studying, dreaming. 



THE PROBLEM BEFORE COLUMBUS 7 

When the Portuguese navigators under Prince Henry 
found that the coast of Africa, after they passed the Gulf 
of Guinea, trended again to the south, they began to fear 
that no passage could be found around the continent to 
the spice islands of the Indies. It was this situation which 
led Columbus to turn his eyes to the west in search of 
a way to the rich but inaccessible East. Believing the 
equatorial circumference of the earth to be considerably 
less than it really was, and assuming, from the chart or 
world-map which Toscanelli, the Venetian astronomer and 
geographer, had sent to him and from other calculations, 
that the eastern coast of Asia extended nearly to what was 
later found to be the continent of North America, Colum- 
bus figured the distance from the Canaries to Cipango 
(Japan) to be not much more than two thousand five hun- 
dred miles. It was a fortunate error in calculation. For 
if he had known that the actual distance was nearly twelve 
thousand miles, he never, in his ignorance of the existence 
of the American hemisphere, would have had the courage 
to undertake the journey. Thus to Columbus's imagina- 
tion Cipango — an island, Toscanelli assured him, which 
"abounds in gold, pearls and precious stones," and where 
"they cover the temples and palaces with solid gold" — 
lay across what was in reality the western part of the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The time, moreover, was ripe for Columbus's great 
achievement. For in 1492 Spain, had superseded Portu- 
gal in maritime as in other affairs, and, after a struggle 
which had continued for eight hundred years, had finally 
expelled from her soil the last of the Moorish invaders. 
She was thus free to devote her surplus energy to explo- 



8 DISCOVERERS 

ration, conquest and colonization. For the next eighty 
years she was the leader in this great work, leaving the 
indelible impress of her language and her civihzation on 
the New World. 

Between 1492 and 1503 Columbus, the pioneer in her 
behalf, made four voyages to America. He died, how- 
ever, in May, 1506, without realizing that when, on an 
October evening, at the end of his first voyage with the 
Nina, the Pinla and the Santa Maria, he sighted a little 
island in what are now the Bahamas, he had discovered a 
new hemisphere. To the end he believed that the islands 
which he had explored and the coasts which he had skirted 
were parts of or were off the shores of China; and, believ- 
ing that he had found the Indies, he called the natives 
Indians — a name ever afterward given to the aborigines 
of North and South America. At first he thought that 
Cuba, and later Hayti, was the famed Cipango of Marco 
Polo, and on his last voyage he searched the coast of the 
main-land in vain for a waterway that might lead him to 
the rich but elusive Indies, all the time inquiring for and 
hoping to find the gold and precious stones and valuable 
spices which Marco Polo, Toscanelli and his own lively 
imagination had told him he should find at the end of his 
voyage. The direct inspiration for his last voyage was 
the news of the success of the Portuguese navigator, Vasco 
da Gama, in reaching the Indies by the route around Africa, 
whence he returned in. 1499 laden with spices and other 
valuable commodities. But, bafiled and disappointed, 
Columbus sailed back to Spain, broken in health, fortune 
and spirit. 

The report of the discovery by Columbus of what was 



lo DISCOVERERS 

supposed to be the indescribably rich island kingdom of 
Cipango was nowhere received with greater interest than 
in Bristol, in those days the principal seaport of England. 
The voyages of the Cabots, John and Sebastian, father and 
son, from Bristol were the direct outcome of this interest. 
John Cabot, like Columbus a Genoese by birth, had mas- 
tered the art of navigation in Venice, and in 14Q0 had been 
induced by professional reasons to make his home in this 
great English maritime centre. 

The authentic records of the results of the voyages of 
the Cabots in 1497 and 1498 are meagre and inconclu- 
sive — not inconclusive as to the fact that one or both of 
them reached America, but as to the exact points which 
they touched and the extent of their explorations. The 
latest historical scholarship favors Cape Breton Island as 
the landfall of John Cabot's voyage in 1497, while Labrador 
and Newfoundland each has its advocates. Cabot thought 
that the land he had found was on the coast of China. He 
brought back, however, no gold or silver, no precious stones, 
no rich stuffs, no fragrant spices, and the enthusiasm of the 
Bristol merchants, as likewise the interest of King Henry 
VII, in the enterprise languished and died. 

The Cabot voyages were not followed up; they did 
not promise commercially profitable results. Eighty years 
later, however, when comparative quid had followed the 
turmoil of the Reformation and when the power of Spain 
was on the decline, the bold spirits of Queen Elizabeth's 
court began to look abroad for conquest and adventure. 
It was then very convenient to cite the discoveries of the 
Cabots as proof of England's right to a large share of the 
choicest portion of the New World. 



ORIGIN OF THE NAME AMERICA ii 

The name America appeared in print first in a geographi- 
cal work entitled Cosmographie Introductio, by two pro- 
fessors, named Waldseemiiller and Ringmann, of the col- 
lege at Saint-Die, France, which was pubHshed in 1507, the 
year after the death of Columbus. Amerigo Vespucci, a 
Florentine navigator, had made a voyage in 1497, i^ the 
service of Portugal, to the coast of South America "beyond 
the equator." Two years later he led another expedition 
to Brazil, Venezuela and other points. The suggestion was 
therefore made in this treatise that this part of the earth 
be called America. 

Vespucci himself had no hand in this affair — probably 
no knowledge of it. Neither he nor Columbus nor any of 
their contemporaries imagined for a moment that a new 
continent had been discovered. Nothing could exceed 
the density of the geographical darkness in which these 
early navigators were groping or the difficulties in the way 
of the scientific men who were trying to form intelligible 
conclusions from the masses of more or less contradictory 
and inaccurate information which they were bringing back 
to Europe from their voyages. And when from time to 
time a ray of light did emerge from this darkness, it lost 
nearly all of its value in the great shadow of China and the 
Indies which for years hung over and clouded the minds 
of sailor and scientist alike. So slowly did geographical 
truth come to fight in those days that it was not until a 
generation later that the first map appeared indicating 
anything like the true outlines of the two continents as a 
distinct and separate hemisphere. This was Mercator's 
map of 1 541. 



II 

EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

The exploration and conquest of the New World which 
Columbus had discovered took place in the sixteenth 
century. In this work Spain, then at the height of 
her power, was the leader. During the seventy years 
following the death of Columbus in 1506, in the reigns 
of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V and Philip II, great 
fleets of vessels bearing soldiers, priests, colonists and 
adventurers by the thousands left the ports of Spain 
for the Spanish main and returned bearing rich freights 
of gold, silver and other treasure which Mexico, Central 
America and Peru had been forced to yield to the con- 
quering invader. 

Having at the outset secured a firm foothold at various 
points in the West Indies and having got some knowledge 
of the coast from Venezuela to Mexico, the Spaniards began 
to extend their sway to the main-land. Vasco Nunez de 
Balboa, the leader of one of the smaller of these colonizing 
expeditions, was the first European to see the Pacific 
Ocean. In 15 13, from a mountain peak in Darien, he gazed 
upon the waste of waters to the west, without realizing 
in the least, one may believe, the significance of what he 
saw. Seven years were to pass before a Portuguese navi- 
gator of scientific equipment and force of character, Fer- 
dinand Magellan, in the service of Spain, was to find. 



ENTERPRISE OF THE SPANIARDS 13 

through the straits which still bear his name, a waterway 
into the Pacific. It was this voyage of Magellan's, con- 
tinued across the Pacific and around the world and com- 
pleted in 1522, which gave European scientists their first 
glimpse of the true relation of the newly discovered lands 
to Asia. And yet, as has been noted, a score of years were 
to pass after this epoch-making voyage before the first map, 
Mercator's, was to be published defining with even an 
approximation to its true outlines the hemisphere of North 
and South America. As late as 1536, moreover, Francis I 
of France thought that the new country around the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence, which Jacques Cartier had explored, 
was the northeastern end of China. And although Sir 
Francis Drake, following Magellan, sailed around the 
world in 1 570-1 580, tarrying a month on the coast of Cali- 
fornia, many, many years were to pass before anything 
like an adequate notion was to prevail as to the extent of 
the continent of North America. 

To return, however, to our story, the conquest of Mexico 
and Peru by Hernando Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, re- 
spectively, between 15 18 and 1533, not only brought great 
honor to the Spanish name, but enriched enormously the 
royal treasury, and was a tremendous stimulus therefore 
to further exploration. The full records which have come 
down to us of three of these expeditions, those of Cabeza 
de Vaca, Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vazquez Coro- 
nado, are among the most valuable of the original narra- 
tives of early American history. They form the chief 
sources of our information as to the manners and customs 
of the Indian tribes between the Carolinas and the Gulf 
of California as they existed in the early part of the six- 



14 EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

teenth century. The narrative of the wanderings during 
six years among the Indians of Texas and northern Mexico 
of Cabeza de Vaca is a unique chapter in the book of early 
American adventure. 

The motive of De Soto's expedition inland and across the 
southern states to Arkansas and the Indian Territory was 
the same as that of Coronado's from a point on the Pacific 
north and across to the heart of the continent at Kansas 
and Nebraska — the hope of finding the rich cities which 
rumor through Cabeza de Vaca and other explorers had 
placed in the vast and unknown "North." The expecta- 
tion of the Spaniards was that they might find another race 
like the semi-civilized Aztecs and another city as full of 
wealth as was Montezuma's capital. They both failed in 
their quests. De Soto, however, won everlasting fame by 
discovering and crossing the INIississippi, and Coronado, 
if he did not find the gold and other treasure of which he 
went in search, brought back a store of curious informa- 
tion about the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico and 
their inhabitants, the wonders of the canon of the Colo- 
rado and the huge herds of bison which covered the Great 
Plains. 

French exploration during the sixteenth century was in- 
termittent, half-hearted, futile. Francis I had only a lan- 
guid interest in over-sea matters; affairs at home, especially 
those growing out of the aggressive hostility of the Emperor 
Charles V, engrossed his attention. Under his auspices, 
however, a Florentine navigator, Giovanni da Verrazzano, 
sailed in a single caravel, in 1524, from the Carolinas to 
Newfoundland, skirting the shores of New Jersey, Long 
Island and New England, anticipating by a year the voy- 




A SPANISH GALLEON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
Redrawn from an old print. 



i6 EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

age which Estevan Gomez made in the service of the Span- 
ish king along the coast from Labrador to Florida in the 
search for a passage to the Indies. 

The three voyages to the St. Lawrence which Jacques 
Cartier made between 1534 and 1541 were of the highest 
importance, although they resulted in no permanent set- 
tlement. For they established the French claim to this 
new country, which the Indians called Canada, and opened 
the way for Champlain sixty- three years later. Although, 
as has already been. no ted, Francis I was under the impres- 
sion that the land which Cartier had discovered formed the 
northeastern part of China, the returning ships brought 
back none of the riches for which Cathay was famous, 
and the interest of the French king in the enterprise 
waned accordingly. Thenceforward the French called this 
land New France, as the Spaniards called Mexico New 
Spain. 

By T570 the decline in the activit}' and energy of Span- 
ish exploration and conc^uest became marked. Philip II, 
alarmed at the progress which the Protestant Reformation 
was making, set out to crush this new heresy by fire and 
sword, as his ancestors had destroyed Mohammedanism 
in Spain. The bloody ferocity and inhuman cruelty which 
were to be Spain's chief instruments in this holy warfare 
were foreshadowed by the massacre, in 1565, of the French 
Huguenots, a motley band of soldiers of fortune and ad- 
venturers who, under the leadership of Jean Ribaut and 
Rene de Laudonniere, had secured a precarious footing on 
the east coast of Florida. Pedro Menendez de Aviles 
descended u]K)n them and, in the joint service of God and 
of Philip II, killed them like sheep by the hundreds, as 



I 8 EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

heretics and as invaders of soil that belonged to Spain. 
The incident was significant of the spirit of rehgious bigotry 
with which the Spaniards of the age of Charles V and of 
Philip II carried on their work of exploration in the New 
World, when the murder of a heretic, as every Protestant 
was regarded, was just as much of a solemn duty laid upon 
them by the church and the state as was the conversion 
of a savage to the true faith. Save for this holy butchery 
INIenendez is remembered only as the founder in the same 
year, 1565, of St. Augustine, which thus became the oldest 
town in the United States and the only town that was per- 
manently colonized in the sixteenth century. 

Such was the power, on sea and land, of Spain in the first 
half of this century that Henry VIII of England, preoc- 
cupied with the Reformation, was content to allow Charles 
V and Philip II to have free rein in the New World and in 
the waters thereof. Under Elizabeth, however, a bolder, 
less complaisant spirit prevailed, partly due, no doubt, to 
the fact that Spain was engaged in subduing the revolt in 
the Netherlands. Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake 
challenged the supremacy of the Spaniard on the sea, 
bringing home to England tales of many a gallant fight and 
of much rich plunder from Spanish ships and Spanish col- 
onies. Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! gives in romance 
form a vivid picture of these stirring times. Hawkins, half 
pirate and half slave-trader, had brought to his fellow- 
countrymen in 1565 their first direct knowledge of Florida, 
while Drake's voyage around the world, in 1 577-1 580, had 
supplied a theme for endless conjecture and eager anticipa- 
tion to every seaport in England. It was on this mem- 
orable voyage that Drake sailed up the coast of California 





= 1^ 



THIRD AND LAST 

VOLVME OF THE VOY- 
AGES, NAVIGATIONS, TRAF^ 

fiques, and DiTcoueries of the £ngli//) Ration, and in 

fome few places.wherc they haue not been,of ftrangcrs,per- 

formcd within and before the time ofthcfc hundred ycercs, to all 

! parts of the Ners found world of ly^mericitfiTthc PVcfi Indies, tiojn y j. 

degrees of Nonhcrly to 57.ofSouthcrlylailtudc: 

As namely ro Engrofianci^ Met a Incognita^ E^otilandy 

Tierra de Labrador ^en>f'jimdland.y^ 'iTye^rand bay, the gulfc ofS.Laii' 

renee^nd the Riiier ofCam/x^A re Vlock'kgA ix\iiSagutniy,^\ong the coaft olAram- 

^v ,10 the I'hores and nisiiics of t/s>^/vMandi%r<W.-;,and cti the Welt or backfide ofthera 

both, to the rich and pic. (lnvt ci ^itries o^ M:iciSA'Sifc'\ya^C^oliiJigKcx,CtcuK, 

Qwunn^o the t j.pi ouir.cc: ofihe Vm^A.amfOxNes' Mexico,\a^c 

And likcwife to all the yki boch fma!! :.-.nd great lying before the 

cape of Florida.Thehiy oi Mericofirdd Tierra firrm, to the coafts and Inlands 

o(NentSfai»e,Tinrafirnii,iniGuiiin*, vp she vlighty V^aexioi Omoqite, 

D<//>^if,3nd.l/,-!r»f»i',»i,toi:ue,yp3ttofiheC93ftof&^/y,,totlieRiuCTofPiit,r, 

throughthcStrcightsof^a^fffanforwirdandbjck'iard.andiothe » 

South of ilit laid Streight^ asfarre as J7.d(;ijM O': 

And from thence on the backfide oi America, along the coaftes.harbooR, 

tnd apes o(ChiU,Pcrn,!^icaragHt,JViK'tjaEffMinii,NrteHaGa/icia,Ciiiiact», 

Cttiftirma,'c(;iiA ^0uu,andmoic Notthcrij 3s£atTeis4).dc3Tees: 

Together withthe two rcriowmedjai^d profperousToyiges of Sir frmcuVriikf 

and MTteBM^Cani/SrOiind about tttetirciimfaence of the wholeearth, and 

dhiers ot'oer royages intended and fct Sanfc for thatcoocfe. 

CoBeBedby RicaARo HAKi-vvt Pre/tcher, trndfometimti 

•i i.deat of Chrill-CiMirch in Od"ord, 




^ Imprinted at London by (jeorge'Bifho^t^lfe 
NeTifherie,znd. Robert Bark er. 



Anko Do>f^ 1^9. 



FAC-SIMILE OF THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE AMERICAN VOLUME OF 

HAKLUYT's "voyages," enlarged EDITION OF 15Q8-160O. 

From a copy of the original edition in the New York Public Library. 



20 EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS 

and spent a month in refitting his ship and in trading 
with the Indians, lying at anchor meanwhile in a harbor 
which Pacific coast scholars are agreed was what is now 
known as Drake's Bay, about thirty miles north of San 
Francisco. 

More than half of Elizabeth's reign had passed before 
she and her people were full}- aroused to the over-sea oppor- 
tunities for colonization and commercial expansion which 
lay between the Spanish possessions on the south and the 
French on the north. The man who opened the eyes of 
all England to the possibilities which beckoned to them 
from the great and unknown West was Richard Hakluyt, 
an Oxford scholar whose imagination had been quickened 
by the stories of returned sailors and whose mind had 
been trained by his studies in the subject of map, chart 
and globe-making. Hakluyt set to work with diligence 
and intelligence to bring to the knowledge of his fellow- 
countrymen the narratives of the navigators and explorers 
of all nations. He published his first collection of these 
narratives, gathered from widely different sources, some 
even by word of mouth, and translated when necessary 
into Enghsh, in 1582. The book was called Divers Voy- 
ages Touching the Discoverie of America. The first edition 
of his great work, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and 
Discoveries oj the English Nation, appeared in 1589. 

No publication could have been more timely. For in 
the preceding year the mighty fleet of Spanish warships 
called the Armada had been destroyed by English shot and 
by storms which strewed the coasts of Scotland and Ireland 
with wreckage. And by the destruction of the Spanish 
Armada the Protestant religion was saved to England and 



END OF SPANISH RULE ON THE SEA 21 

every quarter of the sea was opened to English ships with- 
out the fear of Spanish aggression. For nearly a hundred 
years Spain had been the arrogant mistress of the seas. 
Now her rule had come to an end. 



Ill 

COLONISTS 

The explorers and conquerors having shown the way in 
the sixteenth century, the colonists followed them in the 
seventeenth. The two main streams wdiich flowed from 
England to the shores of the New World came from alto- 
gether different sources and were impelled by very different 
motive powers. The band of gentlemen adventurers and 
soldiers of fortune who settled on the Jamestown peninsula 
in 1607 were in search of gold or a way by water or overland 
to the South Sea, as the Spaniards called the Pacific. Al- 
though they named their settlement after the new Stuart 
king, the Jamestown colonists brought with them the tra- 
ditions of Elizabeth's reign. They were still under the 
magic spell woven in their imaginations by the wealth 
which the Spaniards had found in Mexico and in Peru. 
But toil, privation, hunger and disease niet them at every 
turn and they and those who followed them died ])y hun- 
dreds. 

With the development of tobacco culture, which was 
begun by John Rolfe in 16 12, and the establishment in 161 9 
of self-government through the first representative assem- 
bly in America, the fortunes of the Virginia colony bright- 
ened greatly. The character, moreover, of the colonists 
sent out from England was much better than in the early 
years. The dream of gold mines vanished. The practical 
problem of tobacco culture on a large scale took its place. 




RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH ON THE SITE OF JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA. 

All that remains of the first English settlement. 



24 COLONISTS 

Negro slave labor, introduced by a Dutch vessel in 1619, 
was welcomed as supplementing the convict labor largely 
used up to that time in the tobacco fields. These incidents 
in the early industrial life of the Jamestown colony had a 
far-reaching and determining influence upon the entire 
civilization of Virginia and upon that of Maryland as well, 
where the social and industrial conditions were largely the 
same. 

The little colony of Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth 
in 1620, and the Puritans who, eight years later, began the 
great migration to Massachusetts Bay, were in search not 
of gold or silver, or of a way to the Indies, but of new lands 
and fresh opportunities, with religious freedom. They 
were home-seekers, not treasure-hunters, and they brought 
with them their wives and children, their household goods 
and the few servants whom they possessed. The Pilgrims 
or Separatists, as they were called, were Puritans who a 
dozen years earlier had fled from England and had gone to 
Holland in order to escape persecution for their religious 
beliefs. Finding it difficult to support themselves in a for- 
eign country and wishing to free themselves from the Dutch 
influence, they determined to find new homes in Virginia. 
The first company, one hundred and two in all, sailed in 
the M ay flower . Of this number, however, only thirty-five 
have thus far been identified as having come from the 
Leyden company. They were serious-minded, self-reliant, 
God-fearing men and women, whose long exile had weaned 
them from the mother-land, for which, however, they still 
retained a deep affection. To their number were added 
others who joined the vessel at Southampton or at Plym- 
outh, her port of departure. Chance carried the May- 




THE MAYFLOWER. 
From the model in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. 



26 COLONISTS 

flower to the coast of Massachusetts, instead of to Virginia, 
where, after losing many of their number and suffering great 
hardships, those surviving succeeded finally in founding 
the Plymouth colony under Governor Bradford. 
. The Puritans, who to the number of fully twenty thou- 
sand poured into Boston and the other towns of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay colony between 1628 and 1640, are not to be 
confused with the Pilgrims who came from Holland with 
somewhat different motives. At this period fully ninety 
per cent of the people of England were Puritans. They 
constituted, speaking broadly, the great middle class of 
farmers, artisans, tradesmen and professional men, includ- 
ing many clergymen. They remained in the Church of 
England, trying to resist its drift under the Stuart kings 
toward what they regarded as Popish practices, until the 
persecutions of Archbishop Laud became unendurable, 
when they fled by the thousands across the sea to make 
homes for themselves where they could have peace and 
religious freedom. 

With the rise in power of Parliament under the leader- 
ship of Hampden and Pym, the flow of Puritan immi- 
gration to the New World slackened, and fmally when 
Charles I was beheaded and the Commonwealth was es- 
tablished it ceased. The very conditions, however, which 
brought the Puritan emigration from England to an end 
started another and even a larger stream, of an entirely 
different character, flowing to Virginia. This was made up 
of thousands of men of the best blood in royalist circles in 
England who sought in the New World at once rest after 
the strife of civil war and escape from the rule of the hated 
Commonwealth. 



CAVALIER MIGRATION TO VIRGINIA 27 

This Cavalier class, as it was called, became the aristoc- 
racy of the colony, and transferred to the plantations of the 
tide-water counties of Virginia not a few of the manners, 
customs and tastes that had given grace and distinction 
to the country hfe of the landed gentry under the first 
two Stuarts. The families of Washington, Lee, Randolph, 
Pendleton, Marshall, Madison, Monroe and other men who 
became equally well known belonged to this class, and came 
to Virginia at this period. The migration was as distinctive 
as that of the Puritans to Massachusetts Bay, and largely 
accounts for the increase in the white population of Vir- 
ginia from fifteen thousand in 1649 to thirty-eight thousand 
in 1670. 

Meanwhile other portions of the seaboard were being 
rapidly settled. Henry Hudson, in the interest of the 
Dutch East India Company, sailed up the river which now 
bears his name as early as 1609 in the Half Moon, but it 
was not until fourteen years later that the commercial 
enterprise of the Dutch gave them a firm foothold in New 
Amsterdam. They possessed more of a genius for trade 
than for government. While, therefore, the towns and forts 
which they built became active centres in the trade in furs 
with the Indians, political affairs in New Amsterdam be- 
came more and more hopelessly involved, as humorously 
illustrated in Washington Irving's burlesque, the Knicker- 
bocker History of New York. The distinctive feature of the 
Dutch occupation of New Netherland was the feudal-like 
system of land-tenure under the "patroons, " as the lords 
of the great estates along the Hudson and elsewhere were 
called. The people of New Amsterdam, however, did not 
prosper under commercial rule. When the English took 



28 COLONISTS 

possession of the town in 1664 the population, after thirty 
years of Dutch occupation, was only fifteen hundred. The 
population of all New Netherland was not more than seven 
thousand, while by that time New England contained fully 
one hundred thousand people. 

Maryland was distinguished from her neighbors among 
the early colonies by the proprietary government under 
which the successive Lords Baltimore ruled the colony for 
sixty years, from 1632 until 1692; not, however, without 
constant effort and repeated interruptions due to disputes 
between the assembly and the proprietor. The proprie- 
tors, although of the Roman Catholic faith, welcomed the 
Puritans who were driven out of Virginia and other non- 
conformists; and even the Quakers were allowed to make 
a settlement. The colony, in fact, became an asylum for 
the persecuted of various sects. Religious liberty, however, 
brought with it religious strife. For years bitter conflicts 
were waged between the different sects, first one and then 
the other getting the upper hand. There were alternate 
periods, therefore, of toleration and persecution, which left 
the colony in a state of uncertainty and of unrest. 

The Pennsylvania colony, like that of Maryland, began 
its career under a proprietary government. In 1682 Will- 
iam Penn and his Quaker colonists founded Philadelphia, a 
spirit of broad religious toleration prevailing. The growth 
of the colony was rapid, although — perhaps because — the 
mixture of races in it was marked, and also because it was 
settled late. In three years the colony numbered seven 
thousand inhabitants. Nearly one-half of these people 
were of other than English birth or English stock — Dutch, 
Scotch-Irish, French, Finnish and Swedish. Owing to the 



RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES 29 

wise and beneficent rule of the proprietor no colony out- 
side of New England showed such vitality and capacity 
for growth. Relations with the Indians were peaceful. 
Farms became productive, and commerce, especially with 
the West Indies, increased rapidly. 

The CaroHnas went through a long period of turbulence 
and disorder, also under a proprietary form of government, 
alternately inefficient and rapacious, before they emerged 
into peace and quiet. The population of the Albemarle 
and Clarendon settlements in the north and south respec- 
tively was mixed and discord prevailed for years. 

Any consideration of religious matters in the colonies 
must take into account the different periods in which the 
colonies were settled and the different elements of which 
the populations were composed. Thus the Virginia colony 
had existed for twenty-one years and numbered nearly 
five thousand persons when, in 1628, John Endicott brought 
to Salem the first shipload of Puritans. The persecution 
of the Puritans in England did not become acute until the 
reign of Charles I. Meanwhile the Virginia colonists had 
consistently maintained their allegiance to the Church of 
England, and the English Puritans who joined them in 
the following years were content to accept this as the es- 
tablished form of faith in the colony. 

The antecedents of the New England Puritans and their 
motives in coming to Massachusetts Bay were such as to 
make it natural, perhaps inevitable, that the form of local 
government which they adopted should in effect centre in 
the church. The ministers, many of them graduates, as 
was John Harvard, of that nursery of Puritan clergy- 
men, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, were the leading 



30 COLONISTS 

men, with the magistrates, in every community. Congre- 
gationalism, the essence of which is the independent, 
self-governing character of each church organization, in 
fellowship with other bodies of the same denomination, 
became the State Church, so to speak, and only church 
members were allowed to vote in civil affairs or to hold 
office. As the cultivation of the land yielded only meagre 
returns and as the Indians presented a constant threat 
of danger, the people gathered in towns. And the centre, 
social and political as well as religious, of each town was 
the church. 

The age, moreover, which produced Milton and Bunyan 
and Cromwell in England was one of deep and intense 
religious feeling, in which breadth of view and a spirit of 
charity found little chance for play. Whatever inconsist- 
ency one may find between the ideal of religious liberty 
and the intolerant temper of the time, the fact remains 
that in the two colonies, Massachusetts and Virginia, where 
this temper found the most violent expression, the founda- 
tions of great commonwealths were laid much more cjuickly 
and much more securely than in the colonies where greater 
freedom in religious matters prevailed. Massachusetts 
drove Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson across her 
borders, and even hanged several Quakers because of the 
dissension, turmoil and even danger to the state which the 
presence of these preachers of strange and unwelcome doc- 
trines involved. It was with the same motive that Vir- 
ginia expelled the Congregational ministers who came there 
from Boston, drove the non-conformist Puritans by the 
hundreds into Maryland and fined ship-masters who 
brought Quakers into the colony. After such a period of 



RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND INTOLERANCE 31 

religious strife and turbulence as they had gone through in 
England, the people of both Massachusetts and Virginia 
desired nothing so much as peace. To those who by the 
preaching of strange doctrines became fomenters of discord 
they showed the door. 

The Hartford colony where the middle way was followed 
was no exception to this rule. The settlers were families 
from Cambridge, Dorchester and other near-by towns in 
the Massachusetts Bay colony who held rather more liberal 
views in religion and politics than their neighbors did, and 
who left their homes in 1636 in order to find a place in which 
they would be free to carry these views into effect. The 
New Haven colony, however, which was settled two years 
later, followed the stricter Massachusetts rule in making 
church membership a prerequisite to the right to vote. 
Both communities flourished for years in peace as inde- 
pendent commonwealths, and were free from much of the 
contention and strife which vexed their neighbors. 

The conditions, political, religious and commercial, were 
decidedly different when, toward the end of the cen- 
tury, in 1683, William Penn founded Philadelphia with his 
large colony of Quakers. His Quaker followers themselves 
differed greatly from the disorderly and violent fanatics 
whom the Massachusetts magistrates had hanged a quarter 
of a century earlier. With the death, moreover, of Arch- 
bishop Laud and the waning of the Stuart power, the dan- 
ger of the interference of the home government in religious 
affairs, which was ever present to the Puritans of Win- 
throp's day, had disappeared. The executive abihty, the 
untiring industry and the wise and benevolent spirit of 
their great leader were the chief elements, however, which, 



32 COLONISTS 

in the early years of the colony, served to fuse the widely 
divergent races and creeds of the Pennsylvania emigrants 
into a comparatively peaceful community, to which agricult- 
ure, trade and commerce brought prosperity and in which 
religious doctrine was a matter of secondary importance. 

The two men who by dealing justly and keeping faith 
with the Indians exerted the greatest influence among them 
were Roger Williams and William Penn. More often, 
however, the relations of the settlers on the frontier with 
'the Indians were marked by double dealing and bad faith, 
and the results were generally bloody massacres and pro- 
longed guerilla warfare. More than three hundred persons 
on the Virginia plantations were murdered in an Indian 
uprising in 1622, giving the colony a severe check in its 
development. Half a century later Bacon's rebellion grew 
out of the inabiHty of the Virginia colonists to secure from 
the royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, adequate protec- 
tion against the Indians whom ill-treatment had aroused 
to retaliation. The colonists had other grievances also to 
which Berkeley's aristocratic sympathies and his narrow- 
ness and obstinacy, united to a despotic temper, made him 
equally deaf. The death of Nathaniel Bacon brought the 
revolt to an end and gave the vindictive old governor an 
opportunity to revenge himself by the execution of no fewer 
than twenty-three of the leading spirits of the rebellion. 

The alHance which first the Dutch of New Netherland 
and later the English of New York, during the governorship 
of Sir Edmund Andros, made with the Five Nations, was 
an event of the highest importance. This powerful Indian 
confederation, made up of the Mohawks, Onondagas, 
Senecas, Oneidas and Cayugas, all of Iroquois stock, occu- 



PROVISIONS FOR POPULAR EDUCATION 33 

pied a strategic position of great strength in central New- 
York between the Hudson and the Genesee rivers. Having 
been liberally supplied with guns in exchange for furs by 
the Dutch traders, these tribes of Indians were a compact 
and formidable power, and proved to be a mighty bulwark 
against the incursions of the French and their Algonq.uin 
allies from the north. Had it not been for the efficient 
help which they gave the English colonies in the wars that 
followed, the French might easily have swarmed down the 
valley of the Hudson, with what ultimate result to the colo- 
nies thus split in twain it is impossible to say. 

The value of education was early recognized in New 
England. Provision was made for pubHc schools in all the 
towns of Massachusetts, and in 1636 the colonial legislature 
emphasized its interest in the higher education of its citi- 
zens by founding a college in New Town, as Cambridge 
was then called. Two years later the name Harvard was 
given to the institution in memory of the young clergyman, 
John Harvard, who, dying, left his library and about four 
hundred pounds sterling to the college. 

In Virginia, where the people were scattered on the great 
plantations along the rivers and where only a few feeble 
towns existed, a public-school system was impossible. In 
those early years each planter gave his children such in- 
struction as he could. Governor Berkeley, writing in 1670, 
thanked God that there were no free schools or printing- 
presses in the colony, and thirteen years later the new 
governor, Lord Howard of Effingham, was directed to al- 
low no printing-press in Virginia. Education and printing- 
presses were looked upon in the mother country in those 
days as breeders of sects, heresies and treason. 



34 COLONISTS ' 

During the first twenty-five years of the Dutch occu- 
pation of New Netherland there were only a few private 
schools in the chief towns, and these were not always con- 
ducted by men who were either competent or reputable. 
About the middle of the century, however, under Governor 
Peter Stuyvesant, a public school was established in New 
Amsterdam, and not long after a Latin school was founded 
also. 



IV 

NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

While the English were planting colonies along the coast 
of America, the French were establishing settlements, forts 
and trading-posts in the valley of the St. Lawrence and on 
the shores of the Great Lakes, exploring the very heart 
of the continent and drifting down the Mississippi to its 
mouth. A triple motive was the inspiration for this under- 
taking — religious zeal for the conversion of the Indians 
to the Roman Catholic faith, a desire to monopolize the 
rich fur trade of the Great Lakes, and the necessity of 
checking or neutralizing, in the interest of France, the 
rapid growth of the EngHsh power along the seaboard. 

The leader in this enterprise was Samuel de Champlain, 
a heroic and romantic figure in early American history and 
a man of remarkable character. With the temper of a 
Crusader of the Middle Ages, he looked upon France as 
the champion of Christianity in the New World, and this 
thought formed the very centre of the elaborate political 
scheme which he developed for the enlargement of French 
influence and authority. It was the policy of Champlain 
and his followers to win first the confidence and then the 
friendship of the Algonquin tribes of Indians along the St. 
Lawrence and around the Great Lakes, to share in their 
councils, to take part in their wars with their savage rivals 
— to exercise, in a word, a general supervision over all their 
afifairs, spiritual and temporal. The triple alliance of sol- 

35 



36 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

dier, priest and trader was used effectively in the accom- 
plishment of this work. With French soldiers, in Park- 
man's trenchant phrase, to fight their battles, French priests 
to baptize them and French traders to supply their increas- 
ing wants, the dependence of the Indians upon their new 
allies would be complete. 

Champlain brought versatility as well as loftiness of 
purpose to this task. Combining energy with self-control, 
initiative with tact and address, he was at once a trained 
soldier, a skilled sailor, a keen observer of scientific tem- 
perament and an accurate and vivacious writer. One of 
his voyages carried him as early as 1605, before even James- 
town was settled, along the deeply indented coast of Maine 
and as far south as Cape Cod; and so painstaking and 
accurate were his descriptions of the peculiarities of the 
shore fine that his route can be closely followed at the 
present day. 

The founding of Quebec by Champlain in 1609, when the 
English colonists at Jamestown were struggling against 
famine, disease and death, and eleven years before the 
Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, gave the French a base of 
operations for their inland explorations. In the same year, 
on the shores of the lake that bears his name, the armor 
and arquebuses of Champlain and his few French followers 
were much more effective than the arrows of their Algon- 
quin allies in bringing about the defeat of a band of Mo- 
hawks. A petty affair in itself, this first clash on the 
wooded shores of Lake Champlain between the French 
and the Algonquins on the one hand and a band of warriors 
of the principal tribes of the great confederation of the Five 
Nations on the other, had far-reaching consequences. For 



[ ABfrATlOPf,DE ^^^^ 

pQ_vEBECajr4| ^ 




CHAMPLAIn's picture of QUEBEC IN 16OQ. 

Showing the quarters of himself and his men on the brink of the Saint Lawrence. 
From Chaniplain's Voyages (1613). 



38 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

the result was to intensify the hatred of the Five Nations 
for the French and their Algonquin allies and so to open 
the way for the alliance between them and the Dutch fur- 
traders of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. 

Champlain pushed his way far into the interior. In 
1615 he reached that great arm of Lake Huron, Georgian 
Bay, having travelled thither by way of the Ottawa River 
and Lake Nipissing, and finding in the village of Huron 
Indians, on its shores, a Recollet priest. 

The death of Champlain in 1635, at Quebec, after he had 
devoted twenty-seven of the best years of his life to the 
interests of the colony, caused no cessation in the work of 
exploring and occupying new fields. In 1639 Jean Nicollet 
succeeded in reaching the Wisconsin River, and in the 
following years the Jesuits founded settlements at Sault 
Sainte Marie and at other points in the wilderness on and 
near Lake Superior. 

It was not, however, until 1669 that a man of indomitable 
will and of exhaustless energy, Robert de la Salle, took up 
in earnest the work which Champlain had laid down. 
Rumors that there was a great river far to the westward 
had reached the French through the Indians and mis- 
sionaries, and La Salle's curiosity was aroused to learn if 
this waterway led to China or to the "Vermilion Sea," 
as the Gulf of California was called in those days. His 
first expedition to solve this problem carried him to the 
Ohio River only. Before he could make another start the 
priest Marquette and the fur-trader Joliet had reached 
this mysterious river, the Mississippi, and had floated 
south on its broad bosom as far as the mouth of the Ar- 
kansas. 



40 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

La Salle thereupon determined to follow the Mississippi 
to its mouth and thereby to establish the claim of Louis 
XIV to the extensive territory drained by this great stream 
and its tributaries, thus arresting the advance of the Span- 
iards from the south and of the English from the east. 
Accordingly in 1679, with the help of Count Erontenac 
and after many delays caused by the jealous}- and en\-y 
of both priest and trader, he set sail on the Niagara River. 
The journeys which he made back and forth between Lake 
Michigan and the French settlements, through a wilderness 
filled with wellnigh insurmountable obstacles, and the dis- 
appointments which he met but which seemed only to 
give a keener edge to his resolution, show the heroic stuff 
of which the man was made. 

Finally, in the spring of 1682, after herculean efforts 
extending over three years, he reached the Mississippi by 
way of the Chicago and Illinois rivers, and followed its 
course to its mouth, claiming all of the land drained by this 
mighty stream and naming it after his king Louisiana. 
Returning by way of the Mississippi to Canada and thence 
to France he laid this vast territory at the feet of his 
sovereign. If his scheme for colonizing Louisiana and for 
estabHshing a chain of French forts and trading-posts 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes had not mis- 
carried, the expansion of the English colonies to the west- 
ward might have been considerably retarded. 

Toward the end of Champlain's governorship, when 
the affairs of New France were at a low ebb, the French 
narrowly missed losing control of their new possessions 
for all time. From 1629 until 1632 Quebec was in the 
hands of the English, a squadron under the command of 




r« /-•■V» 



<^ 









'4 |; 









(^ 


l-< 


o 


Ph 






^ 




< 


?; 


:s 


Fi 


H 


o 


< 


T3 


« 




O 




W 


aj 


^ 


s 






hJ 


rn 


W 




t> 


►J 


a 


j: 


7, 


.iii 


< 


S 


1^ 






42 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

David Kirk and liis two brothers having captured the town, 
the French garrison being weak in numbers and in a half- 
starved condition. But Charles I, in return for a large 
sum of money of which he was in need and which he could 
not extort from his Puritan ParHament, restored the town 
to the French ; and through this act of the Stuart king the 
English colonies in America were subjected later to the 
depredations of a border warfare with the French and 
Indians which lasted fully three-quarters of a century. 

This period was from the English revolution, in 1688, 
which placed William, Prince of Orange, and Mary on the 
throne, until the peace of Paris at the end of the Seven 
Years' War, in 1763. During this period England, with 
the aid of her continental allies, Dutch and Germanic, was 
engaged in the stupendous task of thwarting the ambition 
and breaking the power of the French under Louis XIV 
and Louis XV. The fear, while the Stuarts reigned, lest 
England might become a Roman Catholic dependency of 
France had been ever present in the Protestant mind. 
With the fresh courage, however, growing out of the pres- 
ence on the throne of a Protestant king, England under 
William became aggressive. The four wars that she waged 
against France in the next three-quarters of a century 
were virtually one conflict in their general aim, the inter- 
vals of peace merely enabhng the combatants to gather 
new strength and fresh supplies for a continuation of the 
struggle. 

In the American colonies the border warfare during this 
period between the English and the French, with such 
Indian allies as either side could control, was almost con- 
tinuous, not being governed by the official limits of the 



POWER OF THE FIVE NATIONS 43 

corresponding European conflicts. The New York border 
suffered the most in the first war, King WilHam's. Mas- 
sachusetts was occupied in defending her own outlying 
settlements, and the other less-endangered colonies to the 
south were more or less deaf to the appeals of New York 
for assistance. During the entire war, which lasted from 
1688 until the peace of Ryswick in 1697, Virginia, Mary- 
land, Connecticut and East Jersey contributed together 
only a little over three thousand pounds sterling to the 
common defense fund. 

The Five Nations bore the brunt of the fighting and 
suffered severely, losing about twelve hundred warriors, 
nearly half the number of their fighting men. By their 
fierceness and cunning in that war, however, they won the 
respect as well as the fear of the French. Thenceforth it 
was -a consistent and well-maintained feature of the poHcy 
of the governor of New France, Count Frontenac, and his 
successors to make friends with the Five Nations and to 
keep them as far as possible in a state of neutrality. It 
became an equally important part of the French pohcy, 
moreover, to keep the Abenakis and other New England 
and adjacent tribes in constant warfare with the whites, 
lest, by the alluring temptations which the New England 
traders were in a position to hold out to them, they might 
be won over to neutrahty, or possibly even to an alliance. 

While, therefore, during the early years of the eighteenth 
century, in Queen Anne's War, the New York border was 
comparatively quiet, the remote settlements of Massachu- 
setts, including those in what are now Maine and New 
Hampshire, suffered terribly from marauding bands of 
Indians who were instigated to these attacks by the French. 



44 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

The horrors of this savage warfare reached a cHmax at 
Deerfield, in the valley of the Connecticut, in 1704, with the 
killing of sixty persons and the carrying into a captivity 
almost worse than death itself of a hundred others. P>om 
time to time the New England governors took the aggres- 
sive, sending expedition after expedition at heavy cost to 
attack Montreal or Quebec, or one of the fortified harbors 
in Nova Scotia or in Cape Breton Island. For one reason 
or another, however, all of these expeditions proved abor- 
tive, save that commanded by Sir William Peppercll, who, 
in 1745, with the aid of an English fleet, captured the 
important port of Louisburg on the southeast coast of Cape 
Breton Island. But this was a hollow victory, the town 
and fortress being restored to the French by the treaty 
of Aix la Chapelle three years later. 

The middle of the eighteenth centur}' had been passed 
before the full significance of the line of forts which the 
French had built from Quebec to the Ohio River made itself 
felt in the mind of an English statesman who possessed 
at once sufficient imagination to realize the danger they 
presented and suflicient wisdom and authority to meet 
it effectively — William Pitt, the elder, afterward the Earl 
of Chatham. The French barred the way to the natural 
expansion westward of the English colonies. The defeat 
at Fort Necessity, near the Monongahela River, in July, 
1754, of the Virginia troops under the young colonel of 
militia, George Washington, who in this affair comes upon 
the historical stage for the first time, made clear the deter- 
mination of the French to claim as their own and to defend 
the valley of the Ohio and its tributaries as a part of the 
territory of New France. And the crushing defeat of 



END OF THE DREAM OF A FRENCH EMPIRE 45 

General Braddock a year later when, with a large force of 
British regulars and colonial militia, he attempted to reduce 
Fort Duquesne, at the junction of the Monongahela and 
Alleghany rivers, emphasized in a manner not to be disre- 
garded the necessity of a larger and more comprehensive 
plan of attack upon the entire French line of fortifications, 
if the power of this formidable rival in America was to be 
broken once for all. 

The Earl of Loudon and General Abercrombie, who suc- 
ceeded Braddock in command of the regular and colonial 
forces, shared Braddock's inefficiency and were equally 
unsuccessful. It was not until, in 1757, Pitt became the 
real ruler of England that he was in a position to send sol- 
diers of first-rate ability to America in order to carry out 
his far-reaching plan of operations against the French, who 
under the aggressive Montcalm had captured the British 
post of Oswego and Fort William Henry. These he found 
in Amherst, Wolfe, Howe and Forbes, soldiers of ability 
and of tenacity of purpose. With the ample resources 
supplied by Parliament and by the colonies themselves, 
these men were able in a few years, despite one or two severe 
reverses like the repulse of Abercrombie at Ticonderoga, to 
break the French fine of communications in the West by 
the capture of Fort Niagara and Fort Duquesne, and then 
to complete the work for all time by the capture of Quebec 
and Montreal. When, in 1759, Quebec, after having been 
heroically defended by Montcalm, who lost his fife on the 
Plains of Abraham, fell into the hands of the English forces 
under the immortal Wolfe, and, in the following year, Mon- 
treal was forced to surrender to Amherst, the end was 
reached of the dream of a great French empire in America. 



46 NEW FRANCE IN AMERICA 

Thenceforth the English colonies were freed from the over- 
hanging threat of French aggression, with its inevitable 
accompaniment of Indian barbarity and cruelty. The con- 
spiracy of Pontiac, in 1763, represented the last organized 
resistance, desperate but short-lived, of the Indians west of 
the Alleghanies against the permanent occupation of that 
region by the Enghsh settlers. 



GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

Domestic affairs in the colonies had adjusted them- 
selves meanwhile, after a period of more or less confusion, 
to the new conditions brought about by the revolution 
which, in 1688, had placed William, Prince of Orange, and 
Mary on the throne of England. In Massachusetts the 
episode of the Salem Village witchcraft delusion, local in 
its influence and of brief duration, occurred in 1692 while 
these changes were in progress. This lamentable affair, 
in the course of which no fewer than one hundred and 
twenty-six persons were imprisoned and nineteen hanged, 
was a curious expression of the belief in a personal influ- 
ence for evil which is one of the most tenacious supersti- 
tions that barbarism has handed down to civilization. This 
superstition the Puritans brought with them from Eng- 
land. The English Parliament had passed a witch act 
early in the reign of James I, but most of the trials and 
executions which took place under this act occurred in the 
reign of Charles I, during the years when the great Puritan 
migration from England to Massachusetts Bay was in 
progress. The first execution for witchcraft in America 
was in 1648, under Governor Winthrop. The hysterical 
violence of the Salem Village manifestations grew out of the 
veritable panic of suspicion and fear into which the whole 
community was thrown by the accusations. As soon as 
a few of the cooler heads escaped from this influence and 

47 



48 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

applied the test of ordinary common-sense to the mani- 
festations, the superstition received its death blow. Twenty 
years later, however, in England, and even thirty years 
later in Scotland, there were executions for witchcraft, so 
slowly did the ancient belief in a malignant personal in- 
fluence give way to the modern conception of the operation 
of natural law. 

The royal governors appointed by King William took up 
their tasks in a somewhat more conciliatory spirit than 
their predecessors under the arbitrary Stuarts had shown. 
The three centres of royal authority in the colonies were 
Massachusetts Bay, New York and Virginia, although for 
a period New York came under the control of the governor 
of Massachusetts. New Hampshire was made a separate 
colony for the purpose of weakening the influence of Massa- 
chusetts. Connecticut, in which the New Haven colony 
had been reluctantly merged, and Rhode Island were fortu- 
nate in being allowed to retain their old charters under 
which they were self-governing. They had some difficul- 
ties to settle over boundary questions, and occasionally 
there was friction with the royal governor of an adjacent 
province over the control of the militia. But they escaped 
the irritation and friction caused by the quarrels of the 
royal governors with the legislative bodies over fixed 
salaries, taxes, expenditures and supplies. By refusing to 
grant fixed yearly salaries the legislatures prevented the 
royal governors from acquiring the indei)endence for which 
they were constantly plotting. For the colonists reahzed 
that they would be tied hand and foot if the royal gov- 
ernors, while remaining dependent on the king, should be- 
come independent of the colonial legislatures. They had 



50 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

indeed learned well the lesson of the long struggle between 
Parliament and royalty, that only by maintaining firm 
control of the matter of taxes and expenditures could any 
check be kept upon the King's governors and their desire 
to enlarge their personal authority and the royal prerog- 
ative. 

The navigation laws which the English authorities 
imposed from time to time on the colonies were another 
sjurce of more or less annoyance. Their purpose was to 
secure for Enghsh merchants a monopoly in the handling 
of the various products of the colonies, despite the desire 
of the colonists to sell their tobacco, rice, fish, lumber and 
skins in the most profitable market. These laws failed of 
their purpose because in most instances they were evaded 
or ignored, and because for years no attempt was made 
to enforce them rigidly. 

Bitter disputes occurred over these and kindred matters 
in Massachusetts. In New York, where the legislature 
was somewhat less tenacious of its rights and less stubborn 
in maintaining them, the ciuarrelling was less frecjuent 
as well as less violent. \'irginia was comparatively free 
from vexation from this cause. Certain fixed revenues 
which the King enjoyed in Virginia were sufficient to meet 
the ordinary expenses of the colonial government. The 
royal governor was therefore not obliged to ask for grants 
except in extraordinary cases. Two instances in which 
friction arose were when Spotswood, soon after he became 
governor in 1710, quarrelled with the House of Burgesses 
because that body would not appropriate a sum of money 
sufficient to enable him to carry out his plan for a mili- 
tary organization, and when, forty years later, Dinwiddle 



IN PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND 51 

attempted to require a fee to be paid for the seal that was 
affixed to a grant of land. 

The comparative quiet of the early years of Penn's 
proprietary government in Pennsylvania did not continue 
after the English revolution. Although Penn gave the 
colony a new charter under which many concessions were 
made, the people through the assembly were continually 
quarrelling with the proprietary governor over political 
and financial matters, Penn himself remaining in London. 
It was not until the Revolutionary War that the colony 
got rid finally of the last shred of the proprietary form of 
government under which Penn and his descendants had 
ruled the province for nearly a hundred years. Maryland 
emerged from the turmoil following the revolution in 
England with a royal governor. The province continued 
to be so ruled until, in 1715, the fifth Lord Baltimore 
renounced the Roman Catholic faith and thereby recov- 
ered control of the colony as proprietor, the government 
remaining proprietary until the Revolutionary War. The 
feeling in the middle colonies against the Roman Catho- 
lics was for a time bitter, and laws of much severity were 
passed concerning them. 

The growth of population in the colonies in the eigh- 
teenth century was prodigious. At the time of the revo- 
lution in England, 1688, there were about two hundred 
thousand persons of European birth or descent in the 
twelve colonies. In the succeeding sixty years this num- 
ber had increased sixfold — to twelve hundred thousand; 
and some estimates place the figures even higher. At 
the same time there were no fewer than two hundred and 
fifty thousand negro slaves scattered through the colonies, 



52 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

the large majority being in the southern and middle 
provinces. 

The pursuits of the people were diversified. Shipbuild- 
ing, the lumber trade and the fishing industry flourished in 
New England. Albany remained the centre of the traffic 
in furs, and the town of New York early became an impor- 
tant commercial centre and grew rapidly in influence. To- 
bacco continued to be the great staple product of Virginia 
and Maryland, while in the Carolinas and Georgia, which 
had been colonized under a charter which Oglethorpe, from 
motives of the highest philanthropy, had secured in 1732, 
there developed a valuable export trade with Europe and 
the West Indies in Indian corn, rice and indigo. In addi- 
tion to the Enghsh, the farming class in the northern col- 
onies was composed of the Dutch in New York, scattered 
along the valleys and on the broad estates of the patroons; 
the Scotch-Irish and the Germans in central and eastern 
Pennsylvania and in Delaware; and the Swedes and Dutch, 
comparatively few in number, in the Jerseys. 

With the population of the colonies increasing so rapidly, 
through natural causes and by fresh immigration, it was 
inevitable that there should be corresponding changes from 
decade to decade in the social and religious, as well as in 
the political, fife of the people. Thus the new charter for 
the province of Massachusetts Bay which Sir William 
Phips brought to Boston as royal governor in 1692 abol- 
ished the religious test for voters and substituted for it a 
property qualification. This change of itself went far to 
undermine the elaborate ecclesiastical structure which Win- 
throp and his Puritan followers in the Massachusetts Bay 
colony had raised for the protection and advancement of 



THE REACTION FROM PURITANISM 53 

the interests, secular as well as religious, of the colony. 
The decline in influence and authority of the New England 
ministry began from that time. Thenceforth the town- 
meeting became a broader and more accurate register ot 
the people's will, freely expressed. A further sign of the 
reaction from the rigid sway of Puritanism appeared in the 
adoption in 1 708 by the Saybrook Synod of an ecclesiasti- 
cal system, approved later by the Connecticut legislature, 
midway between simple Congregationalism and Presbyte- 
rianism. 

With the substantial lessening of the authority of the 
ministry there naturally followed a decrease in religious 
earnestness and a corresponding laxity in conduct. The 
"Great Revival," between 1734 and 1740, of which Jona- 
than Edwards, minister of the Northampton Church, was 
the leader, and which was continued by the Oxford scholar 
and orator, George Whitefield, was in the nature of a pro- 
test against the reaction from the severity of Puritan rule, 
and sought to bring men back to the old moral standards. 
Despite the excesses which accompanied it, the revival 
made a deep impression, especially in New England and 
in those parts of Virginia and New Jersey where Presby- 
terian churches had been established. The revival in Eng- 
land of which Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was the 
leader and in which Whitefield also took part, was a corre- 
sponding reaction from the corruption and laxity which 
followed the dechne of the Puritan influence. 

In Virginia pohtical power as well as social prestige came 
to be more and more concentrated in the hands of the 
leading county families which had come to Virginia during 
the Cavalier migration. The Church of England retained 



54 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

its preponderating influence, although the character of the 
clergy was not of the highest. The Scotch-Irish immigrants 
who settled in the Valley of Virginia brought with them 
their Presbyterian faith, and by the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century they had established their right to worship, 
thus breaking down the barrier which the Church of Eng- 
land had kei)t standing against non-conformists since the 
days of the Jamestown colony. 

Popular education had made some advances, meanwhile, 
outside of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the Puri- 
tans early established their public schools. There was a 
school at Newport, but there was no public provision for 
education in the Providence Plantations. After the English 
occupation of New Netherland, interest in pubHc schools 
languished, and many of those which the Dutch had or- 
ganized and maintained were given up. In the Jerseys, 
however, schools followed the Presbyterians and Congre- 
gationalists who came thither from New England. In 
Pennsylvania the Scotch-Irish maintained schools. 

The planters of the tobacco and rice-growing provinces 
to the south continued, however, to teach their children 
themselves, or to provide them with private tutors. This 
method of instruction must have had merit, if one may 
estimate its value in developing the minds of the youth of 
the colony by the important parts which the gentlemen of 
Virginia played in public life later in the century. Politics 
in the large and better sense, however, and law formed the 
chief school in which the young men of famih- in the prov- 
ince were trained, while the control and management of 
the great estates from which they drew their incomes gave 
them both assurance and self-command, and developed 



I ^ 

\ 

CO 

o 



4= 
Si 

Si 





V^ 




^ 




r-- 




" 




►;. 1 




N t 




>v ■ 


^ 


« ■ 


•(^ 


3 I 


**^ 


C > 


*««, 


** 1 


o 




4>> 


»>; ' 




rc 


«M« 


O 


^ 


C ' 
^ 



O 1 






o 



9^3£>l^ 




IX. 



1.2 w> 






■cJi'^ 



,- w u a J. « ij o J5 C c <- 

c<*!"« I.S '-<-^ Ht . .'■■"■5 



tac'^ " 2 « ^"c 
" C u o-v c = « 



S - - ■ c 

2 « ^ :«.?: ..-^.S«i 






1 ^ S.>iJ^ ?«K *i;.S5* 2-cr ;s-S"= p3?o " " ; 




'3 a- 



■- j: ■ 



5 aS£g ss-^ sla'^S^' 



J o «, " o B. t; c^ 2 '.s " -s 'c 

™'q r^ ?* ■X ^'■ 






U 



C5 

o 

C4 






-5 i! E 



erf ^ 

Ort o O rj 

J5 o w ^a 

C 00-^ i -p 



u:5 



-^ ,T- 'T -^ ^ W 

'• 3 "« '-^ 'S j- 

'•'' ?, O k. W^ 4/ 






00. c 






5 -V 



LU 







56 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

in them an uncommon talent for leadership. Not a few 
of the planters, however, sent their sons to the mother 
country to be educated. 

As the population in the various centres increased, news- 
papers began to make their appearance. The Boston News- 
Letter began publication in 1704; The American Mercury, 
in Philadelphia in 1719; The Weekly Journal, in New York 
in 1733, and The Virginia Gazette, in Williamsburg in 
1736. Philadelphia early became an intellectual centre, 
largely through the influence of Benjamin Franklin, whose 
Poor Richard's Almanac, first issued in 1732 and published 
annually for about twenty-five years, reached a wide popu- 
lar audience. If he was deficient in ideals, Franklin had 
what is perhaps even more indispensable in a new and grow- 
ing community — an abundance of common-sense; and the 
scraps of worldly wisdom which he scattered through his 
Almanac were good seed sown in fruitful soil at an oppor- 
tune time. 

In various places, too, and at long intervals foundations 
of institutions of the higher learning were being laid. Fifty- 
seven years passed after Harvard began its career before 
the College of William and Mary was chartered, in 1693, 
in WiUiamsburg, Va. Seven years later, in 1701, Yale was 
chartered as a collegiate school, not finding its permanent 
home in New Haven or its name, however, until 17 18. 
Princeton's charter as the College of New Jersey was ac- 
quired in 1746, and was one of the fruits of the "Great 
Revival" of Jonathan Edwards. The University of Penn- 
sylvania developed from an academy founded Ijy Frank- 
lin in 1 75 1. A public library, also due to Franklin, and 
a hospital were further evidences of the intellectual ac- 



Poor Richard, 17 3^. 



A N 




c 



For the Year of Ghrift 




T\c'u'y the 'Firft after I EAP YPAR: 

.^ndrnakis fine, ih Creation Years 

"ccounr of fhe'--ii;nrrn Grf^v 7241 

the Latin Ghurch^ .w-hen O cnr r 6012 

^ i-'y she Computation of, //^ //^ ,,^2 

' By the Rom^n Chronology ^^-gj 

3v >he ^^Habbies.. ^.^^ 

yy herein t.( co>::uimd 
t nc i.unations, Edipfcs, Judgment of 

rf.e Weather, Sp-.ing Tiac. Pl/n.fs Morions & 
; .utuaiAfpeas, Sun and Moon's RiHno .nd Sct- 
;; S' >;^"gth of Days, Time of Hj>h Wj^r 
iMirs, Courts, and obfcrvable Day* "* " ^^ ' 

Fitted torheLarifudcol Forfv Dea^-ccs 

and a Meridian of Five Hours Weft Tron^wJ 
h^iMuy without rehfiKIc Error fc,ve airjhe'ad- 
g^'^"^^ P^^ces, even from ^ewfoundlayul \o Siutb^ 

Printed and fold by I FRJNKL/N, at the New 
..,„., „_^K"iig Officp oea? the Market 

^ ■ ■ ^1^ Tbhd Irojrcgioo. 




FAC-SIMILE, REDUCED, OF THE TITLE-PAGE 

OF "poor Richard's almanac." 



58 GROWTH OF THE COLONIES 

tivity, especially in the sciences, that prevailed in Phila- 
delphia. Founded as King's College in New York City, 
in 1754, Columbia acquired its present name in 1784. In 
1804 Nicholas Brown gave a hundred thousand dollars and 
his name to Rhode Island College, in Providence, which 
had been founded in 1764. Two years later, in 1766, a 
charter was granted to Queen's College, in New Brun- 
swick, N. J., which after many vicissitudes took the name 
in 1825 of Rutgers, from a benefactor of the institution, 
Henry Rutgers. Dartmouth College, which accjuired its 
charter and its home in Hanover, N. H., from George HI 
in 1769, and, at the same time, its name from its patron, 
the Earl of Dartmouth, had its origin in a school organ- 
ized about 1750, at Lebanon, Conn., by the Rev. Eleazer 
Wheelock. 



VI 

RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

The curiosity of the world will probably never be alto- 
gether satisfied as to the reasons why George III and his 
ministers, in the decade from 1765 to 1775, treated the 
American colonies with an arrogance, short-sightedness and 
folly unparalleled in political history. A few things, how- 
ever, deserve to be borne in mind. There were, in the 
first place, no precedents to guide the King and his chief 
ministers, Townshend and Lord North, in the business of 
framing laws for tens of thousands of Englishmen in remote 
colonies. The situation was new, unique. The counsel 
and warnings of the men of keen insight into the large 
political principles involved — Chatham, Burke, Barre and 
others, men who, while believing in the supremacy of Parlia- 
ment, regarded the course of the King and his ministers as 
inexpedient and in some respects as unjust — were ignored. 
To the King and his successive ministries the policy of tax- 
ing the colonists and of exercising autocratic control over 
their internal affairs, legislative, judicial, financial and what 
not, seemed the only one consistent with the dignity and 
even the political integrity of the empire. They even justi- 
fied to themselves the use of British troops in the large towns 
for coercive purposes, their only answer to the "Boston 
massacre, " in which half a dozen townsmen were shot down 
by the soldiery, being a law providing that British soldiers 
indicted for murder should thereafter be tried in England. 

59 



6o RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

George III, moreover, had weighty personal reasons for 
opposing stoutly the contention of the American colonists. 
The very principle of "no taxation without representation," 
upon which at the outset the colonists took their stand, 
was directly at variance with the system under which the 
members of the House of Commons were chosen. This 
system gave great power to the King through the repre- 
sentatives of the "rotten boroughs," containing few, or, 
in some instances, no, inhabitants, while at the same time 
it denied any representation to great and growing cities 
like Birmingham and Leeds. To admit the justice of the 
colonists' position would have been to invite reform in the 
election of members of Parliament, a contingency which 
George III could not contemplate without anxiety and 
even fear. For such a revolutionary change would have 
made Chatham the real ruler of England and would have 
reduced the King to a subordinate position, shorn of a 
large part of his power. 

Finally, neither the King nor any one of his ministers, 
save Chatham, seems ever to have comprehended the fact 
that the colonists were fighting for a great political principle, 
or to have imagined until the very last that they were pre- 
pared to sacrifice their lives and their property in defense 
of this principle. Even the plain truths which FrankHn 
uttered in the memorable examination to which he was 
subjected by the House of Commons with reference to the 
effects of the Stamp Act on the colonies, failed to convince 
the King or men like Townshend that principle and not 
expediency was the controlling motive of the Americans. It 
was in accordance with this belief, that from the American 
point of view the matter was one merely of shillings and 




■ 'ibthlc&f — n and [us Tavagelianils. 



If fialAos lin^ f lunBasc fcm AnsujfflBupgJlui inorEmi £cimoni n thai tusfjl Go^' 



llfvowa the Cnni»«£ .arid o^ov'^hrDf^. 



Bd uwu i tiiwi »RancoUf fttetrh Iheg blliodtlfanda; I}ic pl«mU«eClfaoft< ofVlc1i»ijlutaia»aicfo. iSnau:nih»n!lcirtWj\tt«ifcaui«rH(i*iA 



IhtPatrioti coi»ou»Taar> for mdiurcihed. |lCceiiExraa»n»<»i ihu PUilr citrili'd 






THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 
Reduced from Paul Revere's engraving. 



62 RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

pence, and in order as well to help the British East India 
Company, that the King sought to beguile the colonists into 
purchasing tea from England, by making the price, even 
with the import duty added, lower than that of Dutch tea. 

On the other hand, the American colonists were con- 
tending from the first for the rights which England, in 
the political enlightenment of later times, granted unhesi- 
tatingly to Canada, to Australia and to South Africa, and 
the possession of which binds these British colonies to the 
mother country with loyalty and affection. The Stamp 
Act, which could not be enforced and was consequently 
repealed, was designed merely to produce revenue. The 
Townshend acts, however, laying duties on glass, paper, 
tea and other imports, were broader in scope and deeper 
in design. The purpose of these measures was to concen- 
trate in the hands of the King the absolute control of the 
internal affairs of the colonies through, first, the power of 
appointment and removal; secondly, the payment, from 
the revenue derived from the duties, of fixed salaries to 
governors, judges and other officials; and, thirdly, the 
maintenance of a civil and a pension list. Even the dull- 
est of the colonists realized that to accept these measures 
would have meant political enslavement. The aim of 
Lord North's bills, following the defiant destruction of the 
tea in Boston Harbor, was frankly to bring the rebellious 
Massachusetts colony to its knees by the use of an armed 
force if necessary, and to compel it to acknowledge the 
supreme authority of Parliament in all its affairs. 

The momentous issue thus raised was met b}- the men 
of Massachusetts with unfaltering courage. The King 
and his ministers hoped that the middle colonies would 



64 RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

remain loyal, and there was some ground for this hope. 
For New York, where commercial interests, always timid 
even at the rumor of possible international danger, were 
predominant, and where the population was of mixed 
races, had broken away from the non-importation agree- 
ment among the colonies, and her legislature had refused 
tt) approve the action of the first Continental Congress or 
to appoint delegates to the second. But when the crisis 
became acute differences on minor points were forgotten 
and the colony, largely through the influence of Philip 
Schuyler and the Livingstons, was brought into line with 
her sister provinces. 

In all of these controversies, which became more serious 
and more ominous year by year, Virginia and Massachu- 
setts, the two colonies which had been settled exclusively 
by people of the English race and the original stock of 
which had remained the purest, stood side by side. Vir- 
ginia, through the famous Resolves which Patrick Henry 
by his overwhelming eloquence forced through the House 
of Burgesses, took the lead in the resistance to the Stamp 
Act. And when, in retaliation for the destruction of the 
tea in 1773, the port of Boston was closed to commerce, 
Virginia and nearly all the other colonies, even South Caro- 
lina, made the cause of the unfortunate town their own, 
sending not only sympathy and encouragement but sup- 
plies of food and other commodities to the inhabitants thus 
cut off by sea, and therefore in those days entirely isolated, 
from the rest of the world. 

The spirit of co-operation which was so large a factor 
in bringing and holding the colonies together in this su- 
premely critical juncture had been created and fostered 



IDEA OF SEPARATION AT FIRST UNWELCOME 65 

through the genius for political management of Samuel 
Adams, whose local committees of correspondence welded 
the towns of the Massachusetts colony together and who 
applied successfully the same system to the inter-relations 
of the several colonies themselves. Thus the machinery 
was conveniently at hand for the calling of a provincial 
congress in Concord or Cambridge, when the legislature, 
in pursuance of the arbitrary and high-handed British 
policy, was forbidden to meet, as well as for the assem- 
bling at Philadelphia, in the autumn of 1774, of the first 
Continental Congress. The memorials, however, which 
that Congress adopted fell upon deaf ears. The King and 
his ministers had only one thought — to force the people 
of the colony of Massachusetts to accept the political yoke 
which Parliament sought to hang on their necks; and in 
order to accomplish this end the force of British troops 
at Boston was increased to ten thousand men under Gen- 
eral Howe. 

Up to this time resistance to British oppression had not 
been generally associated in the colonies with any idea of 
separation from the mother country. To most minds the 
notion of independence was unwelcome; to many, incon- 
ceivable. As a whole the American colonists had no 
desire for independence. They and their ancestors for 
perhaps four generations had lived in peace and content- 
ment, as a rule, under the English flag. They were proud 
of this relationship and the depth and sincerity of their 
affection found spontaneous expression on the arrival of 
the news of the repeal by Parliament of the Stamp Act. 

The leaders among the colonists reflected accurately 
this sentiment. Franklin, impressed doubtless by the evi- 



66 RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

dence on every hand of the power and resources of Eng- 
land, looked upon independence as an impossible alterna- 
tive. Jefferson, as late as July, 1775, when the Virginia 
colonel of militia, George Washington, in obedience to 
the call of Congress, was taking command of the American 
forces at Cambridge, expressly denied that the object of 
the war was separation and the establishment of an inde- 
pendent government. "Necessity has not yet driven us 
to that desperate measure," he added. Little did he then 
think that in less than a year's time he would be writing 
the Declaration of Independence! 

Washington himself came to the idea of independence 
reluctantly. When he took command of the army neither 
he nor the rest of the country, with the exception of a 
few individuals, had reached the point of considering inde- 
pendence as the object of the war. It soon became ap- 
parent to him, however, as it did to other patriots, that 
the alternatives between which a choice must be made 
were complete subjugation, political as well as military, to 
Great Britain, or independence. To a man of Washing- 
ton's character, in which great strength of will was united 
to a passionate love of freedom, there could be only one 
way out of such a dilemma — through independence. 

There was one man in the colonies, however, who was 
remarkably equipped for the task which he set himself, 
and who began as early as 1768 to work toward the ulti- 
mate end of independence — Samuel Adams. Prolonged 
reflection upon the broad political principles involved had 
convinced Adams, far in advance of his contemporaries, 
that separation from England was the only possible solu- 
tion of the difficult problem. From that time he worked. 




CARPENTERS HALL, PHILADELPHIA. 

Meeting-place of the First Continental Congress. 



68 RESISTANCE TO BRITISH TYRANNY 

quietly when necessary, but unceasingly, in a great vari- 
ety of devious but effective ways, to influence and shape 
public opinion. Whenever, as occasionally happened, in the 
years following, the fires of resistance to British oppres- 
sion burned low and threatened, through indifference or 
self-interest, to die out altogether, this far-seeing, deep- 
plotting Boston patriot heaped fresh fuel upon the flames 
and carefully tended them, until such time as some new 
display of despotic power and stupidity on the part of the 
King and his advisers served to relieve him of his self- 
appointed task. 



VII 

INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

The military situation in the spring of 1776 was serious. 
The British regulars having in the previous year tested 
the temper and the marksmanship of the Americans at 
Bunker Hill, on the slopes of which more than a thousand 
of their number had been killed or wounded, were in no 
mood to face the breastworks which Washington threw 
up on Dorchester Heights, and were consequently forced, 
in March, to evacuate the town of Boston, sailing away to 
Halifax. 

The military operations around New York, which fol- 
lowed the transfer soon after of the American army to that 
point, were decidedly in favor of the British. Washington 
showed his resourcefulness as a commander in defeat by 
the skill with which he extricated his force of eight thou- 
sand men from the dangerous predicament in which they 
were left by the disastrous battle of Long Island. He 
was materially aided in this operation by the dilatoriness 
of his opponent. General Howe, who, as General Francis 
V. Greene observes in his Revolutionary War, never re- 
covered from the mental paralysis which he received at 
Bunker Hill; and he was favored also by adverse winds 
which prevented the British fleet from proceeding up the 
East River and cutting off his retreat. 

Other misfortunes followed — the battle of Kip's Bay 
and the capture by the British of Fort Washington, with 

69 



70 INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

more than two thousand men, so that December found the 
American commander-in-chief with the remnants of his 
army, about three thousand in number, retreating rapidly 
through New Jersey and across the Delaware, Lord Corn- 
wallis pursuing him with vigor. The withdrawal in fancied 
security of most of the British forces to New York gave 
Washington his opportunity, a little later, for his brill- 
iant dash to Trenton, where he captured a thousand men, 
mostly Hessians. By mihtary strategy of the highest 
order he held at the Assanpink River the main British 
force, hastily dispatched from New York under CornwaUis 
in order to retrieve the disaster of Trenton, while by a 
forced night march over a roundabout route he fell upon 
the three regiments which had been left at Princeton and 
routed them completely, the killed, wounded and captured 
of the enemy numbering fully five hundred. 

These two exploits, at Trenton and Princeton, which in 
their conception and execution have always aroused the 
admiration of military experts, came at a time when the 
outlook for the colonists was blackest. They served imme- 
diately to bring Washington into high distinction, not only 
as a soldier but as a statesman who was ready to assume 
every risk in order to turn the tide of war in favor of the 
American cause and who realized that an immediate victory 
of positive value was necessary for its effect upon public 
sentiment throughout the colonies and upon the spirits 
of his little army. The popular movement for indepen- 
dence had been greatly accelerated by the publication, 
early in 1776, of Paine's Common Sense. Much of the 
enthusiasm, however, with which the adoption at Phila- 
delphia in July of the Declaration of Independence had 



72 INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

been received had died out; what was imperatively needed 
was a substantial military victory. It is not too much to 
say, therefore, that Trenton and- Princeton, coming when 
they did, saved the Revolution. 

The next critical period of the war was the series of 
engagements culminating at Saratoga in October, 1777, 
when the British general, Burgoyne, hemmed in and at- 
tacked on all sides by the hastily summoned militia of 
New York and New England, with the few Continental 
troops that Washington could spare, all under General 
Gates, surrendered more than five thousand men. The 
battle was critical for two reasons: first, because it made 
impossible any further attempt on the part of the British 
to split the colonies in twain by an expedition from Canada 
that should form a junction with Howe or Clinton in New 
York City and thus secure control of the Hudson Valley; 
and, secondly, because it offered convincing proof to Europe 
of the ability of the Americans to win their independence, 
and so led directly to the treaty with France acknowledging 
that independence and securing for the colonies through 
this alliance substantial aid in men, ships, supplies and 
even money. 

Washington's part in this campaign was to keep Howe 
occupied so as to prevent him from sending reinforce- 
ments to Burgoyne. Thus the battle of the Brandywine 
in the middle of September and the battle of German- 
town early in October, both of which Washington lost 
to Howe, contributed indirectly to the American victory 
at Saratoga, because this expedition of the British by 
water for the capture of Philadelphia diverted to this pur- 
pose fully eighteen thousand men, a portion at least of 



i 



74 INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

whom Howe might and should have sent north to the aid 
of Burgoync. PoHtical reasons, moreover, made it imper- 
ative that Washington should not allow Howe to march 
into Philadelphia unopposed, just as in the previous year 
similar reasons had made it necessary for him to oppose 
Howe's attempt to occupy New York, although the suc- 
cessful defense of the city against a greatly superior force 
supported by a fleet of warships must have seemed, as 
it turned out to be, hopeless. The winter of 1 777-1 778 
passed with Howe and his British army in Philadelphia 
and with Washington and his half-starved Continentals 
at Valley Forge. 

The ratification by Congress early in May, 1778, of the 
treaties of commerce and alhance with France, which 
Franklin, Deane and Lee had negotiated, and the news 
that a French fleet under D'Estaing was on the way to 
America, made it imperative for Sir Henry Clinton, who 
had relieved Howe in command of the British troops in 
Philadelphia, to evacuate that city and to concentrate his 
forces in New York. Emerging from Valley Forge, with 
a force which had Ijeen increased during the spring to 
about ten thousand men, Washington overtook Clinton 
and engaged him at Monmouth. But for the treachery 
of the English soldier of fortune, Charles Lee, to whom 
Washington gave the command of the advance column, a 
decisive victory for the Americans would without doubt 
have been won. As it was, Washingtt)n himself came up 
in season to turn a disgraceful retreat into a drawn battle. 
Clinton made his way to New York, with the loss in casu- 
alties and desertions of between fifteen hundred and two 
thousand men since leaving Philadelphia. Washington 



WASHINGTON'S STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES 75 

established himself with his army near by, observing and 
waiting. 

Up to this point Washington had been guided in his 
conduct of the war by two strategic principles of the 
highest importance. His first aim was to keep his army, 
whether it was small or large, in the field and to avoid 
fighting except under conditions of his own choosing. Ex- 
perience, moreover, had taught him that the possession of 
no city or town, neither New York nor Philadelphia even, 
was essential to the cause of independence; but the con- 
tinued existence of the main army of the colonies, he rea- 
soned, was all-essential to the final attainment of this end. 
Consequently he never tried to recapture New York, and 
refuse'd to fight Clinton before Philadelphia, except on 
his own terms. His second strategic principle recognized 
the valley of the Hudson as the key to the military control 
of the colonies as a whole. He resolutely refused, there- 
fore, until the time came for the final stroke that was to 
end the war at York town, to be lured away from this 
pivotal point. He declined to go north to oppose Bur- 
goyne or south to save his own province and the CaroHnas 
from being devastated. He was never, even when at 
Valley Forge, more than a few days' march from the 
Hudson. 

By this policy Washington held a large British force 
inactive in New York or in Philadelphia, his fine of com- 
munication with the New England colonies was always 
open by way of West Point and he prevented the division 
of the colonies into halves, each of which unsupported by 
the other or by the main army might have been overrun 
and conquered. It was through the treason of Benedict 



76 INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

Arnold that the British plotted to secure, without a blow, 
the fortress of West Point and thus to wrest from Wash- 
ington the control of the river and the valley. Finally, 
in the successful execution of the broad military plan 
here outlined, Washington was materially assisted by the 
temperamental sluggishness and general inefficiency of the 
commanders-in-chief of the British forces successively op- 
posed to him, Sir William Howe and Sir Henry Chnton. 

Monmouth was the last battle to be fought in the North; 
thereafter the South was the scene of the final military 
operations. Two events of the year 1780 were distinctly 
favorable to the British, the capture of Lincoln and his 
army in the town of Charleston, and the defeat of Gates 
at Camden. Lincoln, by following his commander-in-chief's 
first strategic principle, might have saved his army by 
retreating into the country and by allowing the British to 
enjoy the empty advantage of occupying the town unop- 
posed. The failure of Gates, to whom after Saratoga a 
general command had been given by Congress, carried 
with it a fortunate result. For Congress tardily but wisely 
entrusted to Washington the selection of his successor, and 
the appointment of General Nathanael Greene to this 
position marked the turning-point in the campaign in the 
South. 

Greene had the energy and military abihty which his 
predecessor lacked, and amply justified Washington's judg- 
ment as to his character and capacity. Having, early in 
1 781, formed a junction of his army with Morgan's forces, 
after the defeat by the latter of Tarlcton at Cowpens, he 
was strong enough later in the year to contribute largely 
to the final victory at Yorktown by forcing Cornwallis 



78 INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

into Virginia within reach of Washington and by occupy- 
ing the attention of Lord Rawdon so constantly in the 
Carolinas that he was prevented from detaching any of 
his force to go to Cornwallis's aid, even when the latter 
found himself hemmed in on all sides at Yorktown. 

Throughout the war, up to this time, the control of the 
sea had been of the greatest advantage to the British 
because of the faciHty with which they could move troops 
from New York to any point along the coast. When, in 
the spring of 1781, the information reached Washington 
that a French fleet under De Grasse was on its way to 
America, he knew that this advantage was about to be 
neutralized and that the day was near at hand when, if 
he could control the movements of De Grasse, the final 
blow would have to be struck with all the force that could 
be assembled. When later he learned that the objective 
point of De Grasse was the Chesapeake, he rapidly made 
his dispositions to overwhelm Cornwallis, who had been 
laying waste Virginia, in the hope of ending the war with a 
single stroke. The British ministry, pleased with the work 
of devastation which had been accomplished, came, at this 
juncture, to the aid of the plan which Washington was for- 
mulating by ordering Cornwalhs to remain on the Ches- 
apeake. In obedience to these instructions he fortified 
Yorktown as best he could, relying on the co-operation 
of the British fleet from New York for his defense. When, 
however, the French fleet under De Grasse entered the 
Chesapeake and Washington himself, having made a 
forced march from New York, attacked his front, he was 
in a vice from which there was no escape. All the mili- 
tary authorities are agreed that from a strategic point of 



AMERICAN PRIVATEERS IN THE WAR 79 

view the Yorktown campaign was boldly and brilliantly 
conceived, and that the execution of the plan was masterly. 

The surrender took place on October 17, 1781, more than 
seven thousand British and Hessians laying down their 
arms. There was no alternative, the investing force being 
greatly superior in numbers — about nine thousand Ameri- 
cans and seven thousand French, together with the fleet 
of De Barras which had joined that of De Grasse. But for 
the substantial help which France contributed at this crisis 
to the cause of freedom in America, making the decisive 
victory at Yorktown possible, the war might have dragged 
on for years. As it was, more than two years were to pass 
before the last EngHsh soldiers remaining in America 
sailed from New York, the treaty of peace negotiated with 
England by Adams, Jay and Franklin being formally signed 
in the autumn of the same year, 1783. Following the 
British soldiers went the loyalists, to the number of fully 
twenty thousand. They sailed to Canada, Nova Scotia, 
Bermuda or the British West Indies and made their homes 
there. 

The part which the American privateers played in the 
Revolutionary War was not unimportant. Between 1776 
and 1783 more than fifteen hundred armed vessels, all but 
a small proportion of which were of private ownership, 
were fitted out in American ports to prey on British com- 
merce. Of this number New England contributed more 
than one-half. Up to the time of the French alliance these 
American cruisers, public and private, had captured more 
than six hundred English vessels, many of them rich prizes. 
Meanwhile, however, British cruisers had captured half as 
many again American vessels, practically ruining the coast- 



8o INDEPENDENCE BY REVOLUTION 

wise and fishing trade of New England. The odds, there- 
fore, were decidedly in favor of England, notwithstanding 
the loss which her merchant marine suffered. 

The one great naval exploit of the Revolution, which 
has a unique distinction never likely to be duplicated, was 
the capture, off the north coast of England, of the British 
frigate Serapis by Paul Jones in the BonJwmme Richard, 
the Americans being forced to abandon their own ship as 
she sank under them, vitally wounded, and to take refuge 
on the frigate which they had captured. 

Finally, the conduct of the Revolutionary War empha- 
sized in a dramatic manner the remarkable combination 
of qualities, moral and intellectual, personal and profes- 
sional, which Washington, fortunately for his country, 
brought to the herculean task which had been laid upon 
him. The obstacles with which he had to contend from 
the outset were wellnigh endless in num]:)er and appar- 
ently insurmountable in character — a Congress without 
power or authority and therefore without credit, the fee- 
bleness of which increased as the really able men in its 
thin ranks departed on diplomatic missions or returned 
to take charge of affairs in their respective colonies; the 
supineness and indifference of the colonial governments 
to his repeated appeals for men and supplies when these 
could not be obtained from Congress; a system of short- 
term enlistments which was almost fatal to the efficiency 
of his army and left him ignorant of what his force was to 
consist of almost from month to month; dissension, suffer- 
ing and even mutiny in the ranks of his unpaid, ill-clothed, 
half-starved army; envy, jealousy and even conspiracy 
among his officers; injustice and demorahzation caused 



WASHINGTON AS A LEADER 8i 

by the officious interference of Congress in appointing for- 
eign soldiers, many of them, unhke Lafayette and Steuben, 
mere soldiers of fortune, to positions of rank. This is only 
a partial list. 

Yet through all these and a thousand other trials, great 
or petty, which would have broken a less resolute spirit, 
Washington pursued his even way, with his mind fixed on 
the main purpose of the war, constantly writing to Con- 
gress or to the colonial governments and pointing out the 
nature and urgency of his needs; pledging his private 
fortune in order to secure food and clothes for his soldiers; 
devising plans at one and the same time for raising funds 
and for defending some point threatened by the enemy; 
advising Congress against a projected French attack upon 
Canada; overwhelming with his cold scorn the Irish ad- 
venturer Conway, the leader in the abortive conspiracy to 
force the commander-in-chief into retirement in order that 
Gates might succeed him; driving the traitor Lee to the 
rear because of his behavior at the battle of Monmouth; 
showing the greatest tact and delicacy in his dealings with 
the French allies; and, in a word, rising equal to any and 
every emergency which he was called upon to meet, in a 
manner, it is safe to say, that could have been matched 
by no other man in a generation of great men. 



VIII 
THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 

At the end of the Revolutionary War the American 
people found themselves burdened with a public debt due 
foreign creditors, France, Holland and Spain, of between 
nine and ten million dollars. This sum represented only 
a small fraction of the total cost of the war, the remainder 
having been borne by the people of the states. It was 
large enough, however, to embarrass greatly a Congress 
which had no power to lay and collect taxes, but was 
dependent upon the states to contribute their share to 
meet the interest payments as they came due. Although 
the population of the country had increased by half a mill- 
ion during the war, the people were poor. Commerce, 
which had flourished in the New England states especially, 
had been practically destroyed. Of the one hundred and 
fifty whalers, for example, hailing from the port of Nan- 
tucket at the beginning of the war, no fewer than one 
hundred and thirty-four were captured by British cruisers 
and fifteen were wrecked, leaving only one of the entire 
fleet to escape. The cod and mackerel fisheries and the 
West Indian trade had been similarly ruined. The great 
body of the people, however, supported themselves by 
agriculture, and to this they turned with renewed energy. 

Meanwhile the conditions under which they were living 
had changed in important respects. It had become neces- 
sary, when independence was declared, for all of the states 

8? 



FREEDOM UNDER INDEPENDENCE 83 

except the two, Connecticut and Rhode Island, which 
had been allowed to continue under their original char- 
ters, to adopt new constitutions adapting the machinery 
of the state governments to the changed conditions grow- 
ing out of the severance of relations with the mother coun- 
try. All of these changes were in the direction of greater 
freedom. Even the governors of the states were shorn of 
most of their powers, authority being concentrated in the 
representatives of the people. The state governments, 
consisting of a chief executive and an upper and a lower 
house, followed the old colonial model, the upper house 
growing out of the governor's council. A varying prop- 
erty qualification was necessary for membership in either 
house, but the right to vote was extended so that it included 
all freemen except those who through shiftlessness or im- 
providence had no motive in keeping taxes low. In all 
but one of the states judicial officers were appointed by 
the governors or the legislatures for a definite term, for 
life, or during good behavior. In all of the states except 
Georgia and South Carolina where slave labor was becom- 
ing more and more necessary for the cultivation of rice 
and indigo, decided steps were taken toward the pro- 
hibition of the slave trade and the gradual emancipation 
of the slaves. Under the new constitution which Massa- 
chusetts had adopted slaves were even declared to be free. 
Progress was also made toward greater freedom in 
religious worship. In several of the states, in Virginia, 
South Carolina and elsewhere, the Church of England was 
disestabhshed, and parish, rates and religious tests were 
abolished, thus severing the connection between church 
and state. This separation was not wholly effected in 



84 THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 

Massachusetts and in one or two other New England 
states, where CongregationaHsm remained a powerful po- 
litical factor, until the beginning of the following century. 
The Presbyterians, meanwhile, who had developed strength 
in the middle states and in northern Virginia, laid the 
foundation for a national church by organizing their first 
general assembly. The Methodists also chose their first 
bishop at a conference in Baltimore in 1784. 

The chief interest, however, of the thoughtful men in 
all of the states during these years following the close of 
the Revolutionary War was centred in the apparently 
insoluble problem presented by a Congress without power 
on the one hand and thirteen independent, self-centred, 
jealous states on the other. The federal idea had been 
of slow growth. It began with the New England Con- 
federation under which, in 1643, the colonies of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven 
made an offensive and defensive league for the regulation 
of affairs of mutual concern, ecclesiastical and commercial 
as well as military. More than a hundred years later, 
in 1754, Franklin submitted to the congress of colonial 
delegates at Albany, assembled to secure the aid of the 
Five, then become the Six, Nations in the impending war 
with the French, a project for a federal union of all the 
colonies for defensive and other general purposes. This 
plan in which the idea of an American nation was fore- 
shadowed for the first time was prophetic of the potential 
power and greatness which to the keen vision of Franklin 
lay in the rapidly expanding population and in the rich- 
ness and extent of the land west of the Alleghanies. Ac- 
cepted by the congress, Franklin's project was rejected by 



86 THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 

the colonial legislatures and by the people. He was in 
advance of his time. A cjuarter of a century was to pass 
before England by her treatment of her colonies was to 
force them into a successful war for independence and 
bring them face to face with the necessity of forming a 
federal union. 

The Continental Congress, first assembled in Philadel- 
phia in October, 1774, an emergency body called into be- 
ing, as we have seen, by the critical situation in Boston, 
sat until 1781 before its powers were defined by the Arti- 
cles of Confederation, exercising by general consent many 
of the functions of a regularly constituted federal gov- 
ernment, but lacking the most essential of all attributes 
of sovereignty, the authority to raise money by taxation. 
The Articles of Confederation themselves did not remedy 
this fatal defect in the scheme, but left the control of all 
taxes, import duties as well as internal taxes, in the hands 
of the states and made no provision by which the federal 
government could enforce its will upon a state that refused 
to contribute its share toward the general expenses of 
the government. Moreover, no bill could be made a law 
without the vote of two-thirds of the states in its favor. 
Any five states, therefore, of the thirteen could block a 
measure and prevent it from passing. Finally, the Articles 
of Confederation left the government in a state of utter and 
shameful helplessness in its dealings with foreign nations. 
When, at the end of the Revolutionary War, England 
made peace, the treaty specified the thirteen states by name; 
the American government was not recognized as com- 
petent to make a treaty or to carry out the terms of one. 

The weakness of the general government under the 



THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY 87 

Articles of Confederation was chiefly due to the jealous 
watchfulness with which the states, from force of long 
habit, guarded their hard-won rights, and to the natural 
reluctance with which they resigned any of these rights 
to an abstraction like the federal government. The con- 
sequence was that the Articles of Confederation, however 
imposing an appearance they may have presented, were 
only the shadow and not the substance of government. 
They did not even possess the germ of the national idea. 
That idea was of very slow growth in the minds of men 
who by years of usage and by generations of tradition 
had become adjusted in thought and practice to the work- 
ings under their eyes and within reach, so to speak, of 
their hands of the system of state government. 

The cardinal principles which were to form the founda- 
tion of the national system were first outlined by Washing- 
ton in the circular letter which he sent to the governors 
of the states when, in 1783, the American army disbanded 
— the results, one must believe, of careful observation 
of the inefficiency of the government during the war 
and of long reflection upon possible remedies for that 
inefificiency. These fundamental requisites were, first, an 
indissoluble union of the states under one federal head; 
second, provision, necessarily involving the right of tax- 
ation, for the full payment of the public debt; third, the 
organization of a militia system on a uniform basis which 
would make the force available for federal purposes; and, 
fourth, fraternity and co-operation in place of local preju- 
dices and parochial policies, a spirit of mutual concession 
and a willingness to sacrifice individual advantage in the 
interest of the general prosperity. 



88 THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 

This high political ideal was reached in the Constitution 
adopted by the convention of 1787, but the pathway to 
it was long and rough and thorny. Few persons, it is 
safe to say, imagined that Maryland was turning her face 
toward that goal when she refused to accept the Arti- 
cles of Confederation until the four states, Virginia, New 
York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, which under their 
original charters or by military occupation laid claim to 
the territory lying between the Ohio River and the Lakes, 
should relinquish those claims to the control of Congress. 
Maryland had proposed earlier that there be included in 
the Articles of Confederation one providing for a division 
of this territory north of the Ohio into states under the 
authority and direction of Congress. The delegates, how- 
ever, were not ready then to take so long a step toward 
a centralized government. The refusal of Maryland to 
recede from its position gave rise to wide discussion, 
with the ultimate result that one by one the four states 
concerned relinquished their claims to the territory in 
dispute. New York taking the lead. Connecticut was 
permitted, as a compromise measure, to reserve for edu- 
cational purposes a strip of land on the southern shore of 
Lake Erie. 

It only remained, therefore, for Congress to provide 
a series of laws suitable for the government of this new 
territory and a body of general principles to which it 
would be necessary for the states to conform as they were 
carved, one by one, out of this territory. These laws and 
principles were embodied in the Ordinance of 1787, the 
influence of which upon subsequent events was of the 
greatest importance. They provided, in brief, that this 



' THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 89 

territory north of the Ohio should ultimately be divided 
into not more than five states, in which slavery should for- 
ever be prohibited ; that the appointment of officers to gov- 
ern this territory should rest with Congress; that freedom 
of religious worship should prevail and that no religious 
tests should be required of public officials; that the right 
to vote should be restricted to the possessors of freeholds 
of fifty acres or more; and that no law should be passed 
impairing the obligations of contracts. "I doubt," said 
Daniel Webster, "whether one single law of any law-giver, 
ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, 
marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787." 

This ordinance carried out in successful detail the proj- 
ect which Jefiferson had brought forward in the Ordinance 
of 1784, but which was too radical a measure for Congress 
to accept at that time. Its importance and significance lay 
in the fact that its passage was the exercise by Congress for 
the first time of national sovereignty in its highest form, and 
was so in harmony with changed public opinion in favor 
of a strong central government that the absence of any 
authority in the Articles of Confederation for the enact- 
ment of so sweeping a measure and the neglect of Congress 
to refer the matter to the states for their approval, were 
both acquiesced in by the people. 

What were the causes of the change in public sentiment 
which made possible this Ordinance of 1787, under which 
the great commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin were one by one formed into indepen- 
dent states? The chief cause was the fear, which by the 
winter of 1787 had become acute, lest the country should 
drift into anarchy or even civil war, if something were 



90 THIRTEEN JEALOUS STATES 

not done immediately to a\ert the danger. The reality 
and the magnitude of this danger were apparent to the 
more thoughtful men throughout the older states. Com- 
munication between the principal cities was slow and infre- 
quent. The Boston merchant who had occasion to go to 
New York took more time for the journey, in one of the 
two stages that sufficed for the passenger traflfic in those 
days, than he would require now to go to Seattle — a week 
or even ten days, over rough roads and across rivers by 
ford. The antagonisms and jealousies of the states thus 
had time to take root and flourish in the long intervals that 
elapsed when disputes were pending. The craze for paper 
money had threatened to bankrupt several of the states 
and had impoverished the people. Riotous outbreaks in 
New Hampshire and Vermont were followed by armed 
rebellion under the leadership of Shays in western Massa- 
chusetts, directed mainly against the courts as the instru- 
ments of the state for the collection of debts which the 
farmers, in their distress, could not pay. Sex'eral of the 
northern and southern states, including Kentucky and 
Tennessee, were in a bitter quarrel over the proposed com- 
mercial treaty with Spain, in the interest of the northern 
merchants and ship-owners, the price for which was to be 
a renunciation of the claim of the United States to the con- 
trol of the Mississippi below the Yazoo. So intense was 
the feeling over the matter that threats of secession from 
the confederation were freely made on both sides, ceasing 
only when the treaty was withdrawn. And the climax 
was reached when early in 1787 New York, alone of the 
thirteen states, refused her assent to the proposed amend- 
ment to the Articles of Confederation giving Congress the 



FEDERATION A NECESSITY 91 

power to lay and collect import duties sufficient to meet 
the interest on the public debt. New York would not give 
up the revenue from or the control of her customs, and 
the unanimous consent of the states being necessary for 
such an amendment, the measure failed and the wheels of 
the federal government were completely blocked. 

Under these chaotic conditions pubhc sentiment under- 
went a rapid change in favor of a convention that should 
find a way out of the strife, turmoil and danger, through 
the formation of a stronger government with greater pow- 
ers. It was in response to this sentiment that Congress 
called a convention to meet in Philadelphia, on May 14, 
1787, the place and the date coinciding with those of the 
adjourned Annapolis convention, in which Washington 
had showed a deep interest, and which had been assem- 
bled to discuss and, if possible, to regulate the discordant 
commercial relations of the different states. 



IX 
UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

The Constitutional Convention was as representative 
not only of the political wisdom but of the general intelli- 
gence of the states as any assembly that could have been 
convened. Of its fifty-five members a large percentage, 
thirty-two, consisted of men of college training, not a few 
of whom had made themselves, by special study, masters 
of the science of government. These included nine gradu- 
ates of Princeton, the chief of whom was James Madison, 
five of William and Mary, four of Yale, three of Harvard, 
two of Columbia, one of whom was the brilliant young 
lawyer, Alexander Hamilton, and one each of Pennsylvania 
and of several English and Scotch universities. The four 
men who in breadth of knowledge and variety of expe- 
rience excelled all their colleagues in this distinguished 
assembly were Washington, Franklin, eighty-one years of 
age, Madison and Hamilton. 

After deliberating more than four months in secret ses- 
sion the convention made public the text of a constitution 
which from that day to this has aroused the admiration 
of the profoundest of political philosophers and the closest 
students of the science of government. That these men 
with their necessarily limited vision could have drafted 
an instrument of such flexibility as to adapt itself equally 
well to a nation of less than four millions of people and to 
a nation, with its outlying dependencies, of over a hundred 

92 



HARMONY THROUGH COMPROMISES 93 

millions, while allowing for the corresponding develop- 
ment of conflicting interests which would necessarily arise 
from this enormous increase in population, has been justly 
looked upon as little short of marvellous. "Yet, after 
all deductions," says James Bryce, "it ranks above every 
other written constitution for the intrinsic excellence of 
its scheme, its adaptation to the circumstances of the 
people, the simplicity, brevity and precision of its lan- 
guage, its judicious mixture of deiiniteness in principle 
with elasticity in details." 

These results were not attained, however, without a 
prolonged controversy over every essential point. The 
states from force of long habit were tenacious of their 
rights and suspicious of each other, and when at last an 
agreement was reached on some controverted question, 
this result was attained only by concessions on both sides. 
The form which the two houses of Congress finally took 
was the result of a compromise, suggested by the delegates 
from Connecticut, between the conflicting ambitions of the 
large states and the small states, a compromise that was 
designed to equalize the representation, as far as it was 
possible to do so. Other important provisions were based 
on compromises. The northern states agreed to allow 
three-fifths of the slave population in the South to be in- 
cluded in the enumeration that was to serve as a basis for 
representation in the lower house of Congress, and to post- 
pone for twenty years the suppression of the African slave 
trade. At this period cotton was cultivated to only a slight 
extent in the South, and slave labor was chiefly serviceable 
for rice and indigo culture in Georgia and South Carolina; 
slavery, it was therefore generally thought, would die out 



94 UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

gradually. A provision for the restoration of fugitive 
slaves to their owners was also accepted. In return for 
these concessions the consent of Georgia and South Caro- 
lina was secured to the provision allowing the federal 
government to have complete control of commerce. The 
foundations of the new government were, in fact, laid in 
compromise. 

The debates in the state conventions to which the Con- 
stitution was referred for ratification, and in the innumer- 
able newspapers and pamphlets of the day, immediately 
divided the public into two parties, the Federalists who 
favored the adoption of the Constitution as it stood, and 
the anti-Federalists who opposed its adoption, at all events 
unless it was modified in one particular or another. The 
Federalists had by far the better of these arguments, the 
ablest champion among them being Hamilton. The Fed- 
eralist essays, which Hamilton, with assistance from Mad- 
ison and Jay, wrote and published while the Constitution 
was before the New York legislature for ratification, con- 
stitute, according to John Fiske, "the most profound trea- 
tise on government that has ever been written." They 
were of unique value as an exposition and an interpretation 
of the Constitution in that they were written by the men 
who were most instrumental in giving that document its 
distinctive form and who were presumably best acquainted 
with the intentions of those who framed it. 

One by one the states ratified the Constitution, although 
the opinion was general that the new government would be 
experimental merely and might turn out to be as unwork- 
able as the old one had been under the Articles of Confed- 
eration. The absolute and immediate need, however, of 



TASK OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY 95 

some sort of a centralized government was so universally 
conceded that a large majority of the states were quite 
willing to give the new Federalist Constitution a trial. It 
was significant, however, of the absence of unanimity of 
sentiment that the great states of Virginia and New York 
should still be wrangling over its provisions when the 
requisite number of states, nine, ratified it. In time all fell 
into line, several, however, by a close vote and one or two 
under coercion. The first ten amendments to the Con- 
stitution were adopted in the first session of Congress and 
were immediately ratified by the states, so that they may 
be regarded as a part of the original instrument. In the 
nature of a bill of rights, they were designed to guarantee 
freedom of speech, religion and person and the protection 
of property. 

The Federalist party which came into power at the first 
election under the Constitution of 1789, when Washington 
was chosen President and John Adams Vice-President, 
remained in control of the government for twelve years — 
during the two terms of Washington and the one term of 
Adams, Jefferson having been elected Vice-President under 
Adams. It was a task of appaUing proportions and of 
unparalleled difficulties which the Federahsts in this period 
set themselves to perform. For they were not only re- 
quired to devise, to set up and to start in operation, with- 
out precedents to guide them, the highly-complicated ma- 
chinery required by the various government departments, 
including the United States courts, but they were also 
expected to create, adopt and carry into effect a financial 
and economic policy which should give cohesion and power 
to the new government and prosperity to the country. 



96 UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

This task, the enormous responsibihties of which would 
have crushed an ordinary man, was undertaken by Hamil- 
ton, whom Washington had made Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in his first cabinet. 

No wiser choice could have been made. For Hamilton, 
although he was only thirty-two, brought to this tremen- 
dous undertaking technical knowledge of wide range, prac- 
tical skill of the highest order in the application of this 
knowledge to existing conditions, rare judgment and un- 
wearying industry. What was of even greater importance 
than his intellectual equipment was the fact that his execu- 
tion of this task was based upon a statesmanship so national 
in its scope that it included men of all parties throughout 
the country and so sound and so far-reaching that its effect 
upon the form of the government and upon the public 
policy which was developed in those early years can 
never be effaced. In rapid succession Hamilton submitted 
reports and bills providing for the creation of a national 
bank, a mint and a currency system; a funding plan for 
turning the $75,000,000 or so of pubHc debts, foreign, 
domestic and state, into government bonds; and revenue 
measures laying duties on imports and taxing the manu- 
facture of spirits. At the beginning of its career Con- 
gress had passed a tariff bill, the real purpose of which was 
to produce revenue for the expenses of the government, 
although the preamble described it as "for the encourage- 
ment and protection of manufactures." Hamilton, how- 
ever, brought forward a plan designed to encourage the 
establishment and to foster the growth of manufactures 
by a system of bounties and protective duties which had 
in it the germ of the protectionist idea on which, many 



HAMILTON AND THE FEDERALISTS 97 

years later, parties were to divide and a great economic 
policy was to be founded. 

Hamilton hoped, and with good reason, that the general 
effect of his financial and economic policy would be to sup- 
ply the stimulus and the means for the development of 
the vast resources, industrial and commercial, as well as 
agricultural, which his prophetic vision saw were latent in 
the country. At the same time his policy was designed, 
in the words of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, "to create a 
strong and if possible a permanent class all over the coun- 
try, without regard to existing political affiliations, but 
bound to the government by the strongest of all ties, 
immediate and personal pecuniary interest." If this end 
could be accomplished, the political effect, he reasoned, 
would be of enormous advantage in strengthening the 
power and increasing the prestige of the central govern- 
ment. 

Out of the immediate discussion which these bold meas- 
ures precipitated in Congress grew the Federalist party 
headed by Hamilton and the Republican party under the 
leadership of Jefferson who was also a member of Wash- 
ington's cabinet. The Federalists favored a broad con- 
struction of the Constitution and advocated the theory 
of impHed powers under the "general welfare" phrase. In 
their view of the Constitution the rights of the states and 
of individuals were subordinate to the supreme authority 
of the national government. Jefferson and Madison, who 
soon joined the Republican ranks, were advocates, on the 
other hand, of a strict construction of the Constitution. 
To them and their followers Hamilton's policy seemed 
to be devised for the purpose of creating and protecting 



98 UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

privileged classes. Democratic by instinct and training and 
influenced by the French Revolution and its flaming jjrocla- 
mation to the world of liberty, equality and the rights of 
man, Jefferson saw in the rapid development of a highly- 
centralized government with wellnigh unlimited authority 
the ominous threat of a monarchy, and the Federalists were 
openly accused of plotting to this end. There was some 
justification, moreover, for these accusations. Hamilton 
was by no means alone in his party in his lack of sympathy 
with the ideas of the French Revolution or in his distrust 
of American democracy. The epithet "democrats" which 
the Federalists apphed to Jefferson and his followers was 
intended to express their contempt in much the same way. 
that one might use the word ''demagogue" to-day. 

The first significant indication that the Federalist party 
was losing its hold upon the people followed the ratification 
of the treaty which Jay had negotiated in 1794 with Eng- 
land. In the previous year the French republic had de- 
clared war against Great Britain, whereupon the United 
States had issued a proclamation of neutrality, the first 
declaration of the American j)()licy of non-intervention in 
the wars and politics of Europe. The right, however, of 
American merchant-vessels as neutrals to carry provisions 
to French or British ports was not recognized by either 
belligerent. Such vessels became liable, therefore, to seiz- 
ure, if bound for any British or French port, and were 
captured and harassed without redress. The impressment 
of American seamen for service on British men-of-war, a 
practice which began at this {period, also added to the bit- 
terness of feeling toward England, and little further provo- 
cation was needed to induce the United States to declare 



DOWNFALL OF THE FEDERALISTS 99 

war against that nation. Jay was sent to England to avert 
this calamity, and the treaty which he negotiated served 
this purpose. 

To the Federalists such a treaty, although it did not 
promise on its face to bring much relief to American com- 
merce, seemed preferable to war with England; and the 
result more than justified this expectation. For it had 
the effect of at least postponing a conflict for nearly twenty 
years, and it did stimulate American commerce. The total 
exports from the United States, not including foreign 
products re-exported, more than doubled in value from 
1795 to 1801, rising from $22,855,000 to $47,020,000. The 
total imports into the United States increased in the same 
period from $69,756,000 to $111,363,000. To the Repub- 
licans, however, this treaty of Jay's was a base betrayal 
of the national interests and honor by a party which thus 
openly and shamelessly avowed its subserviency to Eng- 
land and its sympathy with monarchical ideas. A shower 
of personal abuse and vilification was hurled upon Wash- 
ington himself, whose popularity even in Virginia, where 
Republicanism was strongly entrenched, seemed to be in 
danger of being undermined. 

It was in the passage, however, in 1798 of the Alien and 
Sedition laws that the Federalists in Congress committed 
their crowning blunder. Under these laws, by which 
Republican editors and local political leaders were liable 
to be arrested and thrown into jail or expelled from the 
country, the Constitution was stretched dangerously near 
the breaking-point. The apparent purpose of these laws 
was to suppress free speech and to enable the FederaHsts, 
by getting rid of their most troublesome opponents, to 



loo UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

establish themselves so firmly in power that they could 
not be dislodged. The real purpose of the Federahsts was 
to exert a restraining influence, through the convenient 
means of the federal courts, over the masses of the people 
who, according to the advanced theory of the party, were 
not altogether to be trusted. 

The Republicans were quick to take advantage of the 
political opportunity which this extreme extension of the 
national authority over the individual gave them. The 
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, drawn by Jefferson and 
Madison respectively, and passed by the legislatures of 
those states in 1798, were intended both as a protest against 
the harshness and illegality of these measures and as a 
reminder that there were limits beyond which the federal 
government could not go in its dealings with the state and 
with the individual. This early enunciation of the state 
rights, later known as the nullification doctrine, was to 
serve for years as the only documentary basis on which 
the party of Jefferson and Madison rested. The one thing 
that was wanting to make this theory of state sovereignty 
plausible, if not sound, was brought into the clear light by 
the Civil War sixty years later, that sovereignty is only 
an empty name if it has not the means and the power to 
enforce its will. 

A war with France, as foolish in its origin and aim as 
it was brief in duration, could not be made to help the 
fortunes of the Federalists. Dissension and treachery in 
Adams's cabinet and a quarrel between Adams and Hamil- 
ton who, although he had become a private citizen, was 
still the real leader of the party, completed the demorahza- 
tion of the Federahsts, who lost the election of 1800 after 




WHITNEY S COTTON-GIN. 
From a photograph of the model in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. 



I02 UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

a career which began in honcjr and high achievement and 
ended in folly and disaster. 

The life of the American people did not concern itself 
exclusively with political matters, momentous and impor- 
tant as these were, in this decade. The invention by Eli 
Whitney, a Connecticut school-master living in Georgia, 
of the cotton-gin in 1793 had a greater effect in later years 
upon political, industrial and social conditions in the South 
than most of the measures passed by the Federalist Con- 
gresses. For Whitney's invention enabled a negro slave 
to clean a thousand pounds of cotton a day, while with a 
roller gin he could clean no more than six pounds in the 
same time. In other words Whitney's invention increased 
the value of slave labor, as applied to this branch of the 
cotton industry, more than one hundred and sixty fold. 
It was this sudden and enormous increase in the value of 
slave labor which changed the attitude of Virginia and her 
neighbors and made them defenders of slavery and sharers 
in the immensely profitable industry of raising slaves for 
sale to the cotton planters. 

Under the stimulus of this invention and of the per- 
fection in England of machinery for manufacturing cotton 
cloth the exports of this great staple, as it was soon to 
become, leaped, in the decade from 1791 to 1801, from 
189,000 to 21,000,000 pounds. The same year of Whit- 
ney's invention saw the erection in Pawtucket of the first 
successful cotton factory in America, the machinery being 
copied from that just coming into use in English mills. 

Other industries also began to make their appearance. 
The increase in the number of newspapers and the popu- 
larity of the pamphlet as a pohtical weapon had caused so 



RAPID GROWTH OF POPULATION 103 

large a demand for rag paper that by 1797 there were 
sixteen paper mills in Connecticut alone. Early in Wash- 
ington's first administration anthracite coal had been dis- 
covered near what is now Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, 
but, wood being plenty and cheap and transportation to 
tide-water being prohibitively expensive, these coal-fields 
were allowed to lie untouched. Years were to pass before 
this coal would be needed to generate steam-power and 
before steam-power as applied either to boats or to loco- 
motive engines would be available to move the coal from 
the mines. Experiments, however, with various types of 
steam-power as applied to boats were taking place in Eng- 
land and in America, and John Fitch, Hke Whitney, a 
Connecticut inventor, in 1790 had constructed a steam-boat 
which, propelled by paddles arranged on the sides, reached 
a speed of seven knots an hour and was afterward used to 
carry passengers on the Delaware River. 

Meanwhile the population of the United States as shown 
by the census had increased from nearly four million in 
1790 to five million three hundred thousand in 1800, about 
thirty-five per cent. The most populous state at the end 
of the century was Virginia, with not far from nine hundred 
thousand inhabitants, of whom, however, about one-third 
were negro slaves. The next in order was Pennsylvania, 
with about six hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom 
fewer than four thousand were slaves. New York was 
third, with over half a million inhabitants, of whom about 
twenty-one thousand were slaves. Fourth in the list came 
North Carolina, with nearly half a million inhabitants, of 
whom about one-fifth were slaves. Massachusetts followed 
with a population of somewhat over four hundred thousand, 



I04 UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION 

slavery having been abolished, as we have seen, by the 
new state constitution. 

In the decade three new states had been admitted to the 
federal union, Vermont in 1791, the census of lygchaving 
shown the state to contain more than eighty-five thousand 
inhabitants; Kentucky in 1792 and Tennessee in 1796. 
The volume of the stream of migration which, in the ten 
years from 1790 to 1800, poured over the Alleghanies and 
down the Ohio Valley into this fertile territory may be 
inferred from the fact that Kentucky increased its pop- 
ulation in that time by three hundred per cent — from 
73,677 to 220,955 — while the number of settlers in Tennes- 
see grew, in the same interval, in practically the same ratio, 
from 35,691 to 105,602. In 1800 Ohio territory contained 
45,365 inhabitants, and Indiana territory 5,641 only. 

The centre of population moved directly westward in 
the decade, from a point on the eastern shore of INIaryland 
a little south of east from Baltimore, to a point in central 
Maryland almost exactly north of Washington. Under 
an agreement made in the first Congress, as a result of one 
of the numerous compromises between the northern and 
southern claimants, the seat of government was to remain 
in Philadelphia for ten years and was then to be trans- 
ferred to the District of Columbia. It is a curious coin- 
cidence that when this transfer was made, at the end of 
Adams's term of office, the centre of population for the 
United States was within twenty-five miles of the new 
capital of the nation. 



X 

AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

The ten years following the inauguration on March 4, 
1801, of Thomas Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr 
as Vice-President of the United States were remarkable 
for the expansive energy shown by the American people. 
Jefferson came into power as the leader of the Republican 
party, the cardinal principle of whose poHcy had been a 
strict construction of the Constitution. Yet the purchase 
from Napoleon for fifteen million dollars of Louisiana, the 
whole vast, unknown, ill-defined territory lying to the 
west of the Mississippi River, was directly at variance with 
this principle. Such, however, are the exigencies of state- 
craft that the Republican administration found itself at 
the beginning of its career forced by circumstances to adopt 
the very course for which it had condemned the Federalists 
and to give a broad instead of a strict construction to the 
Constitution. Happily for his country Jefferson was too 
big a man to be frightened from the path on which he had 
set out by the bugbear of political consistency. 

Louisiana at different times and by different treaties had 
passed from the hands of the French into the control of 
Spain and then back to France again. Napoleon's leading 
motive in selling it was to cripple his mighty adversary, 
England, although in exactly what way he expected this 
result to be accomplished is not clear. If his expedition 
to Santo Domingo had not met with disaster, Louisiana 

105 



io6 AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

might have become a powerful French colony. Such a 
colony, however, the head-quarters of which would neces- 
sarily have been New Orleans, would have been open to 
attack and probable capture by England's fleet, and no one 
knew this better than the First Consul. Jefferson let it 
be known, moreover, that the military occupation of New 
Orleans by the French might, and very probably would, 
have the efl'ect of forcing the United States into an alliance 
with England, and such a result was far from what Napoleon 
desired. The urgent need of money was undoubtedly an 
influential factor also in inducing Napoleon to make to 
Livingston and Monroe, the latter of whom had been sent 
especially to France to bargain for the port of New Orleans 
and for west Florida, his sudden offer of Louisiana as a 
whole; fifteen millions, one may believe, being welcome in 
exchange for so distant, so vague and so exposed a posses- 
sion. 

Jefferson's ruling passion was for peace, and whenever 
his conduct of affairs showed signs of weakness or vacil- 
lation, this passion supplies the key to its meaning. If 
Napoleon had landed an army in New Orleans his troops 
would have met no opposition, unless the hardy frontiers- 
men of Tennessee and Kentucky had undertaken on their 
own responsibility to drive the French out of the country. 
Jefferson's plan, in case New Orleans was occupied by the 
French, was to postpone any attempt to oust the unwel- 
come invader until the national debt had been substantially 
reduced and until the Mississippi Valley was filled with 
fighting men. 

Fortunately he w^as not obliged to resort to this Fabian 
policy, but could contemplate with satisfaction the out- 



PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 107 

come of his first venture in international statecraft. The 
emergency through which he had passed had been a some- 
what rude awakening from the optimistic dream under 
the soothing influence of which he had entered upon the 
task of governing. Refined in his tastes, delighting in an 
intellectual life of science and art, sanguine by tempera- 
ment, he was a theorist who aspired to be the leader in a 
new era of peace and happiness which, his imagination 
told him, was about to dawn upon the world. "Political 
philanthropists" is the felicitous phrase by which Henry 
Adams characterizes Jefferson and his two associates, 
Madison and Gallatin, an "aristocratic triumvirate" v/ho, 
incongruously enough, found themselves at the head of the 
American democracy. 

Under the influence of this democracy just come into 
power, class privileges gradually disappeared, the right to 
vote was made by the states to rest upon a basis of man- 
hood alone, and the courts with increasing frequency upheld 
the rights of the individual as against the authority of the 
federal government. At the head of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, appointed to that exalted post by 
President Adams just before his term of office expired, was 
John Marshall, the great Virginia jurist, whose dislike and 
distrust of Jefferson were as profoundly felt as they were 
frankly expressed, and it was upon this great Federalist 
Chief Justice that a large part of the task was to fall of 
reconcihng democracy and nationality. 

The purchase in 1803 of Louisiana from Napoleon, con- 
trary though it was to the policy and traditions of his party, 
was by far the most noteworthy act of Jefferson's two ad- 
ministrations. At a stroke it more than doubled the area 



io8 AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

of the United States and gave the mid-continent a free 
water route for all time to the sea, enriching the nation 
with untold stores of mineral and agricultural wealth. For 
years Jefferson had been keenly alive to the prospective 
value of this enormous but unknown territory beyond the 
Mississippi. When he was a member of Washington's 
first cabinet his interest in scientific pursuits had led him 
to attempt the organization of an expedition to explore 
this vast land of mystery in the expectation that informa- 
tion of the highest value would thereby be obtained about 
the native races, the animals, plants and topography of 
the country. He even went so far as to select as the leader 
of the expedition Meriwether Lewis, a young Virginian of 
an adventurous turn of mind who possessed resolution and 
judgment as well as courage. 

A more favorable opportunity, however, for this bold 
enterprise had to be awaited, and this opportunity came 
on the heels of the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon, 
when the whole country was eager with curiosity as to the 
distant wilderness for which the government had paid 
fifteen million dollars and when Jefferson himself was anx- 
ious to justify to his fellow-countrymen the expenditure of 
so large a sum of money for such a purpose. The President 
again turned to Lewis, then his private secretary, as the 
leader for this expedition, having secured the approval 
of Congress for the venture. Lewis thereupon associated 
with himself WiUiam Clark, to both of whom commissions 
respectively as captain and lieutenant in the army were 
given in order to impart an official character to the expedi- 
tion and to place it under military discipline. As a tale 
of danger, hardship and adventure, the story of this expe- 










SECTION or Clark's map of his route. 



no AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

dition is without a parallel in the annals of American 
exploration. In May, 1804, Lewis and Clark left the 
neighborhood of St. Louis, then a struggling village which 
a few weeks earlier had been transferred to the United 
States authorities, and, with forty-five men in three boats, 
travelled up the Missouri River, over the Rocky Mountains, 
and down to the mouth of the Columbia River. Returning 
b\- nearly the same route they arrived at St. Louis in Sep- 
tember, 1806, with the loss of only three men, one by de- 
sertion, one b}- disease, and one, an Indian, by being killed. 
The first white men to cross the continent, they brought 
back journals which for a hundred years have been a store- 
house of information for 'ethnologists, naturalists and other 
scientific investigators. 

In ]\Iay, 1791, thirteen years before Lewis and Clark set 
out on their adventurous journey. Captain Robert Gray 
in command of the Columbia, a Boston ship of only two 
hundred and thirteen tons, engaged in the sea-otter trade 
between the northwest coast and China, had been the first 
to enter the mouth of the great river separating the present 
states of Washington and Oregon. Sailing up this broad 
stream a distance of twenty-five miles Captain Gray gave 
it the name, from that of his ship, which it has borne since 
then. In 1787 the same vessel had made the pioneer voy- 
age among American merchantmen to this distant coast, 
the inspiration for the venture coming from the narrative 
of a young American seaman, John Ledyard, who had 
accompanied Captain Cook to this ''Oregon country," 
as it came to be called, and who had noted in the posses- 
sion of the natives an abundance of sea-otter skins which 
could be got in exchange for knick-knacks and sold at a 



EXPLORING THE CONTINENT m 

high profit in China. Captain Gray on this earher voyage 
brought the Columbia back to Boston by way of China, 
where he sold his furs and purchased a cargo of tea, thus 
being the first American master-mariner to carry the United 
States flag around the world and to open the way for the 
valuable fur trade which John Jacob Astor developed 
several years later. His discovery of the Columbia River 
was largely the basis on which the United States estab- 
lished its claim to the rich Oregon country drained by its 
waters. 

While Lewis and Clark were absent on their memorable 
journey, another expedition, also organized for the purpose 
of gathering information with reference to the new terri- 
tory embraced in the Louisiana purchase, — twenty men 
under the command of an ambitious soldier who had fought 
in the Revolutionary War, Captain Zebulon Montgomery 
Pike, — was sent out by boat from the military head- 
quarters, at St. Louis, of General James Wilkinson to ex- 
plore the head-waters of the Mississippi. Returning after 
having reached Cass Lake as his furthest point, Pike at the 
head of another party penetrated the unknown country to 
the southwest, including the head-waters of the Arkansas 
River and the mountains of Colorado, carrying the Amer- 
ican flag even into the disputed territory on the borders of 
New Spain, where he and his men were arrested and re- 
turned to the United States authorities. His official nar- 
rative of his discoveries, experiences and adventures is a 
fitting complement to the journals of Lewis and Clark. 

Navigation on the waterways which were brought under 
the control of the United States by the purchase of Loui- 
siana was made easy and commercially profitable by the 



112 AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

successful application, which Robert Fulton, who had 
financial and other support which Fitch had lacked, made 
in 1807 of steam-power to boats propelled by paddle- 
wheels. Fulton's ingenuity had been shown by his ex- 
periments with torpedoes and submarine boats in France, 
where he met Robert R. Livingston, the American minis- 
ter. The two became warm friends, and Livingston, whose 
influence and purse were always at the service of genius, 
was of much assistance to him poHtically and financially. 
Fulton developed the paddle-wheel idea which had long lain 
in his mind, and, applying it to the Clermont, the name of 
which was taken from Chancellor Livingston's seat on the 
Hudson, drove that pioneer vessel to Albany, about one 
hundred and fifty miles, in thirty-two hours, making the 
return journey in thirty. This invention worked an imme- 
diate revolution in inland water transportation. "It will 
give a cheap and quick conveyance," wrote Fulton to his 
friend Joel Barlow, after describing the trip of the Clermont, 
"to the merchandise on the Mississippi, Missouri and other 
great rivers which are now laying open their treasures to 
the enterprise of our countrymen. " Within a few years 
steam-boats were plying on all of these western rivers as 
well as on the inland waterways along the Atlantic sea- 
board. ■ 

Meanwhile the American merchant marine had been 
suffering to such an extent from the depredations of the 
Barbary pirates of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli that, despite 
his passion for peace, Jefferson had finally been obliged to 
send fleet after fleet to the Mediterranean in order to check 
their ravages on American commerce. Through the energy 
and activity in 1803 of Captain Preble these licensed pirates 



114 AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

were finally subdued, and were forced to sue for peace 
and to forego further exactions of tribute. The story of the 
exploits of American sailors in this curious conflict forms a 
brilliant page in the early history of the American navy. 

A hundred and more years ago the Americaii merchant- 
vessels were a large factor in the wealth of the young nation 
and were well worthy of government protection. The 
great adaptability of the New Englanders for the sea was 
well illustrated by the fact that at the outbreak of the 
Revolutionary War there were more than three hundred 
vessels haihng from Massachusetts ports alone engaged in 
whale-fishing in the north and south Atlantic. After the 
war this initiative and energy found new and wider chan- 
nels in which to expend themselves." All the capital that 
was available was turned into ships and outfits, for the 
richest prizes to be had in those days were to be won in the 
ocean carrying trade. 

The results were that in the year when Jefferson was 
elected President, 1800, the ship-owners of the United States 
had vessels to the amount of nearly seven hundred thousand 
tons engaged in the foreign trade. In the previous decade 
there had been a significant decrease from one hundred and 
fifteen thousand to forty thousand in the tonnage of the 
British shipping entering and clearing from American ports; 
vessels owned in the United States were carrying freights 
heretofore taken by British ships. By 1807 the tonnage 
of American ships had increased to eight hundred and forty 
thousand, and, ignoring the temporarily depressing effect 
of the embargo, which will be discussed among the causes of 
the War of 1812, the United States in 1810 had a total of 
nine hundred and eighty-four thousand tons of shipping 



A GREAT MERCHANT MARINE 115 

registered for the foreign trade. In the same year, more- 
over, there were new ships of a total of one hundred and 
twenty-seven thousand tons built in the United States, and 
ninety-one and a half per cent of all American exports and 
imports were carried in American vessels. Allowing an 
average of one hundred and seventy-five tons to a vessel — 
the average, according to the records of the Department of 
Commerce and Labor, was one hundred and eighty-three 
tons in 1813 and one hundred and ninety-seven tons in 
1823 — it appears that the United States had as available 
for the foreign carrying trade in 181 1 a fleet of not far from 
six thousand vessels. 

The merchandise which formed the cargoes of this fleet 
increased in value from seventy-one million dollars in 1800 
to over one hundred and eight millions in 1807, dropping 
to less than sixty-seven millions in 18 10 as a result of the 
embargo and non-intercourse policy adopted by Jefferson. 
What, do you ask, were the cargoes which these thousands 
of American vessels bore from the ports of the United 
States? From the North chiefly lumber and food products 
— flour, beef, pork and dried fish; from the South, cotton, 
tobacco, rice, indigo, tar, pitch, turpentine, sugar and mo- 
lasses, the last two articles from Louisiana. And on the 
return voyages they brought fabrics and hardware from 
England, wines and oils from the continent, tea from China, 
and pepper from Sumatra. The exports of cotton in- 
creased enormously under the stimulus of Whitney's in- 
vention and the high prices following the development of 
cotton manufacturing. In. 1799, when the price varied 
from twenty-eight to forty-four cents a pound, nearly 
eighteen million pounds of this staple were exported from 



ii6 AN ERA OF EXPANSION 

the United States. Ten years later, in 1809, the price had 
fallen to sixteen cents and a fraction, and the volume of 
exports had risen to over ninety-three million pounds. By 
181 1 New England had eighty thousand spindles in opera- 
tion in her cotton mills. The annual value, moreover, of 
the tobacco exported from the United States in the first six 
years of the century varied from five and a half to six and 
a half million dollars. 

The population of the states had increased in the decade 
by nearly two millions of people, the total in 1810 being 
more than seven and a quarter millions. The growth was 
naturally largest in the border states, while the territory 
of Indiana contained nearly twenty-five thousand people — 
almost five times the number in 1800 — and Illinois had a 
population of over twelve thousand. 



XI 

THE WAR OF 1812 AND ITS CAUSES 

The honor which came to Jefferson in his first adminis- 
tration through the purchase of Louisiana was forgotten 
in the dishonor which his policy of "peaceable coercion" 
brought upon the American flag in his second administra- 
tion. The reduction of the national debt occupied a far 
larger place in the mind of the President than the protec- 
tion of the American sailor against impressment or the 
defense of American shipping against seizure. Indeed, 
Jefferson, reflecting the view of the agricultural interests 
which formed the mass of his party, looked with disapproval 
on the growth and activity of the American merchant 
marine. The rapid increase in the size and wealth of the 
cities on the seaboard also gave him concern. Unless this 
development were arrested there was danger, he thought, 
that the balance that should subsist in an ideal republic 
between agriculture, manufactures and commerce would 
be disturbed. Madison, who succeeded him, largely shared 
these views, and, as a consequence of this attitude on the 
part of the Republican administrations, the sailors and 
vessels of the United States were subjected to greater indig- 
nities during the decade preceding the War of 1812 than the 
shipping of any nation had ever suffered. 

These indignities were due to two causes, first, the 
desire on the part of England to cripple the commerce, 
already grown to large proportions, of this new and upstart 

117 



ii8 THE WAR OF 1S12 AND ITS CAUSES 

nation, which threatened to drive EngUsh merchant-ships 
from the seven seas; and, second!)', to the necessity Eng- 
land felt herself to be under, in the face of Napoleon's 
growing power and ambition, of maintaining the efficiency 
of her war-vessels by keeping the complement of their 
crews full. In accordance with the theory which Great 
Britain had always held, "once a subject, always a sub- 
ject," American vessels were overhauled wherever they 
were found, even at the entrance to the port of New York, 
and seamen alleged to be of British birth were forcibly 
taken from the crews and compelled to serve in English 
men-of-war. There was no redress either for the act or 
for the arrogance, insolence and brutality which more often 
than not accompanied the act. And so active were Eng- 
lish naval officers in carrying impressment into practice 
that by 1807 there were no fewer than six thousand Ameri- 
can seamen who were serving against their will in the 
British fleet and whose cases had been reported to the 
State Department at Washington. How many similar in- 
stances were unreported to a government which gave its 
impressed sailors no help will never be known. 

On the other hand. Great Britain's contention was that, 
if the federal or local authorities in the United States lacked 
the power or the disposition to assist the naval officers or 
the merchant captains of her vessels in recovering the 
sailors who deserted by the score whenever a British vessel 
touched at an American port, she was justified in searching 
American merchantmen, and even American war-\'essels, 
in order to recover these deserters. Owing to the alluring 
opportunities held out by the American merchant service, 
these desertions had become so numerous as reall}- to alarm 



IMPRESSMENT OF AMERICAN SEAMEN iig 

the English government lest the efficiency of England's 
fighting force in the navy should be impaired. In the 
perspective of a hundred years, moreover, it is possible to 
understand the unwillingness of England, independent of 
her theory of allegiance, to recognize as valid American 
citizenship papers which, according to Henry Adams, 
"were issued in any required quantity and were transferred 
for a few dollars from hand to hand." An English naval 
officer, having the power to enforce his will, was thus at 
hberty to treat as fraudulent the citizenship papers of as 
many sailors on an American merchantman as he needed 
in order to fill the complement of his crew, and out of the 
gross abuse of this power, often exercised in a needlessly irri- 
tating and humihating manner, grew a condition of affairs 
that became more and more difficult to bear every year. 

American shipping meanwhile was suffering severely 
from seizures and confiscations for which there was no 
redress, being ground ruthlessly between the upper and the 
nether millstones of British commercial avarice and Napo- 
leon's greed for war funds. Without warning, the British 
courts suddenly reversed their ruling by which breaking 
bulk and reshipping in an American port had made a neu- 
tral cargo safe from capture, and the result was that more 
than a hundred vessels flying the United States flag were 
taken as prizes by English cruisers into the home or colonial 
ports of Great Britain. The embargo, putting an end to 
foreign commerce, which went into operation late in 1807 
and by which Jefferson hoped to starve England into a 
cessation of this persecution, left American ships idle at 
their wharves, while their owners and sailing masters were 
revihng the "southern ohgarchy" controlling the adminis- 



I20 THE WAR OF 1812 AND ITS CAUSES 

tration for its incompetence. The effect of the embargo 
was seen in the decrease in the value of exports from the 
United States from $49,000,000 in 1807 to $9,000,000 in 1808. 

Some relief came to the harassed shipping interests in 
1809, when Madison succeeded Jefferson as President, 
through the substitution of the Non-intercourse law, forbid- 
ding trade with Great Britain and France, for the embargo 
which had utterly failed of its purpose and had bitterly- 
incensed the commercial states against the administration. 
This relief was short-lived, however, for of the entire fleet 
of American merchant-vessels which in the first year of 
Madison's administration were induced to set sail, in the 
mistaken belief that continental ports were at last open 
to their cargoes, very few returned. From the ports of 
Italy to those of Norway American vessels to the number 
of fully two hundred, and worth, with their cargoes, many 
millions of dollars, were confiscated and sold by the orders 
of Napoleon, ostensibly in retaliation for the Non-inter- 
course act, but really in order to supply him with much- 
needed funds. 

British aggressions continued, despite the ominous note 
of a deeper and wider feeling of j:)opular resentment which 
appeared in several measures adopted by Congress. The 
vacillation and fear heretofore inspired by the overwhelm- 
ing size and power of the British fleet and the British 
armies were giving way to a wrath which made war in- 
evitable, let the consequences be what they might. The 
presence of several new men, young and ardent, in Congress, 
conspicuous among whom were Clay and Calhoun, and 
Madison's desire for a re-election, were also factors which 
made for war. Finally, in June, 181 2, war was declared, 




H "2 



122 THE WAR OF 1S12 AND ITS CAUSES 

the large majority of the votes in Congress in favor of 
hostilities coming from south of the Delaware River. De- 
spite impressments and seizures the New England states 
were violently opposed to any war and especially to a war 
with their best customer, England, so slight had been the 
growth, in the feverish and all-absorbing commercial ac- 
tivity of the past decade, of the idea of nationality. 

The administration placed its chief reliance upon the 
state militia, with which it was proposed to invade Canada, 
and upon the distress in England and in the British colonies 
which would follow the cutting off of the food supply from 
America. Little was expected from the half-dozen or so 
frigates, with eight or ten smaller warships, of the American 
navy, in view of the force of a hundred war-vessels which 
Great Britain kept on the American station, out of her 
available fleet of more than a thousand sail. 

When, however, on a day in midsummer the United 
States frigate Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull, arrived at 
Boston with two huntlred and sixty-seven prisoners from 
the British frigate Gucrricrc which she had dismasted, 
captured and blown up, there was great rejoicing, even in 
Federalist New England, where the conflict was even then 
contemptuously referred to as "Mr. Madison's war." 
Something, it was felt, had at last been done to avenge the 
insult involved in the attack, five years earlier, of the Leop- 
ard upon the Chesapeake and to restore a little of the na- 
tional self-respect. Before the end of the year two other 
British frigates, the Macedonian and the Java, had been 
captured or destroyed, the former by the United States 
and the latter by the Constitution, while two fights between 
smaller vessels had resulted in American victories. In 



AMERICAN VICTORIES ON THE SEA 123 

1813 the contests resulted more evenly, each side losing 
three vessels in single ship fights, the capture of the Chesa- 
peake by the British frigate Shannon being a severe blow 
to American pride in its newly-discovered sea-power, as was 
also the loss in Valparaiso harbor in 18 14 of the American 
ship Essex to the British frigate PJicehe. The greatly su- 
perior number of the British vessels resulted, after the first 
year or so of the war, in the capture or blockading of all 
the American frigates. 

Colonel Roosevelt in his Naval War of iSi 2 says that 
the two things which contributed to the American victories 
were, first, the excellent make and armament of the ships, 
and, second, the skilful seamanship, excellent discipline 
and superb gunnery of the men who were in them. A not 
inconsiderable factor also in bringing about the American 
victories was the careless over-confidence with which these 
seasoned British sailors of many hard-fought European 
campaigns entered upon what seemed like the holiday task 
of teaching the despised Yankees a few fundamental prin- 
ciples of naval warfare. In several engagements the British 
vessels were somewhat overmatched in men and in arma- 
ment, but not to such an extent as to explain the great 
disparity in losses due to the marked superiority of the 
American gunners. In the fight in which the conditions 
were most nearly equal, between the American eighteen-gun 
ship-sloop Wasp and the British eighteen-gun brig-sloop 
Frolic, the latter lost both of her masts and ninety killed 
and wounded out of a crew of one hundred and ten, her hull 
being riddled. The American loss was only ten men killed 
and wounded in a crew of one hundred and thirty-five. 
The battle was fought in a heavy sea, and while most of the 



124 THE WAR OF 1812 AND ITS CAUSES 

British shots, fired when the ship was on the crests of the 
waves, went wide or did httle damage to the rigging, the 
Americans fired as they had been taught, on the downward 
roll of their vessel, their shots doing frightful execution. 

Meanwhile, the "invasion of Canada" had turned out a 
fiasco. Hull's disgraceful surrender to Brock gave Detroit 
and Michigan to the British who threatened even Ohio. 
They were forced back into Canada, however, by the brill- 
iant naval victory of Perry's improvised squadron on Lake 
Erie, while Macdonough's signal victory in a somewhat 
similar battle on Lake Champlain compelled an army of 
British veterans, released for service in America by the 
fall of Napoleon, to turn back. Another British force, 
landing from Chesapeake Bay, marched to Washington and 
burned several of the public buildings. The scene of the 
final land battle of the war, which was fought in January, 
1 815, several weeks after the treaty of peace had been 
signed, but before the news had arrived in America, was 
south of New Orleans where Andrew Jackson, with his 
Tennessee and Mississippi riflemen, protected by breast- 
works, shot down the British regulars by the hundreds as 
they advanced in close formation time and again over open 
ground, showing thereby that they had learned nothing 
from the experience of their predecessors at Bunker Hill. 
The British loss in killed and wounded was over three 
thousand in an attacking force of about eight thousand 
veterans; the American loss was insignificant. 

Peace had been brought about by a variety of influences — 
the downfall of Napoleon and the weariness of the English 
people after their long series of fierce wars; the high prices 
of food, flour selHng for fifty-eight dollars a barrel in London 



RAVAGES OF AMERICAN PRIVATEERS 125 

in 1813; and, finally, the ravages of American privateers 
on British commerce. A strong argument could be framed 
to show that it was chiefly economic distress which finally 
brought England to terms, and that this distress was 
mainly caused by American privateers. When war was 
declared there were fully forty thousand men in the Ameri- 
can merchant marine. Within sixty days no fewer than 
one hundred and fifty swift, heavily sparred vessels, 
manned and armed as privateers, left American ports to 
prey on British commerce in the north Atlantic. These 
were followed by others until there were more than five 
hundred American privateers, carrying nearly three thou- 
sand guns, taking part in the war. The value of the thir- 
teen hundred vessels, with their cargoes, which these priva- 
teers captured, is estimated at thirty-nine million dollars 
— about six times the value of the British ships and cargoes 
which the vessels of the American navy captured in the 
same period. These privateers were manned by as skilful, 
hardy and resourceful a race of sailors as ever lived — men 
in whom courage and self-reliance had been developed to 
a high degree by the fact that for years, with little or no 
protection from their government, they had been obliged 
to defend themselves in uncharted waters against Malay 
pirates, Spanish buccaneers, and Barbary corsairs, and to 
save themselves by flight from English and French cruisers. 
It was notorious that a crew of twenty of them on an Amer- 
ican ship, owing to the mechanical devices which their 
ingenuity and resourcefulness were constantly inventing, 
could do the work more easily than a crew of thirty English 
sailors on a British ship of the same size. The damage they 
inflicted on British commerce was enormous. 



126 THE WAR OF 1S12 AND ITS CAUSES 

One of the incidental results, linally, of the war was the 
annihilation of the Federalists as a party, in consequence 
of the suspicion of treason and of a conspiracy to secede 
from the federal Union which the Republicans forever after 
attached to those who had taken part in the Hartford 
Convention of 1814. While there undt)ubtedly was senti- 
ment in the commercial centres of New England in favor 
of secession, with a disposition to seek the protection of 
England-, the proceedings of the convention merely voiced 
the Federalist irritation under continued Virginia domina- 
tion in the government, and the feeling that the commer- 
cial interests of New England were being sacrificed by this 
domination. 



XII 
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

The period from 1820 to i860 was marked by four im- 
portant aspects of the life of the American people which 
will be treated in this and the three following chapters. 
These aspects reveal the development, in a remarkable 
manner, of the mechanical ingenuity and the industrial 
activity of the people, the expansion of American commerce 
until it reached its high-water mark, the full efflorescence 
in poetry, fiction, essays and history of American literature, 
and the divergence of the North and the South over the 
question of slavery, culminating in the Civil War. 

The tide of migration from the seaboard states, especially 
in the North, to the rich lands in the Ohio and Mississippi 
valleys, which had been checked by the War of 181 2, be- 
gan to flow again as soon as peace was made. So inade- 
quate were the means of transportation and so formidable 
was the barrier presented by the Alleghany Mountains that 
the problem of connecting the East and the West, for pohti- 
cal as well as for economic reasons, engrossed the attention 
of the ablest minds of the day. Three solutions of the prob- 
lem were found — in the construction by the federal govern- 
ment of the national road from Cumberland, Md., to the 
Ohio; in the building by the states, with assistance from 
the federal government, of turnpikes over the mountain? 
and through the gaps, and finally in the Erie Canal which, 
completed in 1825, made a water route from the Hudson 

127 



128 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

to the Lakes. As fast as these hues of communication were 
opened they were crowded. The stage rates over the 
Cumberland Road were five and six dollars a hundred- 
weight from Philadelphia or Baltimore to the Ohio, passen- 
gers as well as freight being charged by weight. In 1820 
there were fully three thousand wagons engaged in the busi- 
ness of transporting merchandise between Philadelphia and 
Pittsburgh over the turnpikes which the state had built 
across the mountains. From the outset the Erie Canal 
brought prosperity to the state of New York, establishing 
the commercial supremacy of the city of New York, where 
the value of the real and personal property rose from about 
seventy million dollars in 1820 to one hundred and twenty- 
five millions in 1830, and doubling the value of lands and 
farm products in the western part of the state. 

With this great artificial waterway in such successful 
operation that the tolls in 1830 amounted to more than a 
million dollars, and in view of the earher demonstration of 
the commercial practicability as a coal-carrier between the 
Pennsylvania mines and New York City of the Delaware 
and Hudson Canal, it was inevitable that canals should 
multiply rapidly. From 1830 to 1840 nearly a hundred 
million dollars were spent by the states, with some aid from 
the federal government, on various canal systems, mainly 
in New York and Pennsylvania, including four lines across 
the Alleghany Mountains. Ohio also built a system of 
canals which became tributary to the Erie Canal, and many 
years later Lake Michigan and the Illinois River were con- 
nected by a canal. 

While the plans for these elaborate s}-stems of canals 
were being carried out no one imagined for a moment that 



I30 INDUSTRIAL DEXELOPMENT 

the locomotive engine and railroads were soon to revolu- 
tionize transportation. Yet the Erie Canal had ix'cn in 
operation only four years when the first locomotive engine, 
of which the Englishman, George Stephenson, had been 
the inventor, was brought to the United States and served 
as a rribdel for the early American engines. The first rail- 
road, built in 1830 and fifteen miles in length, connected 
Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills. The first railroad in New 
York state, built in 1831, connected Albany and Schenec- 
tady; the first in Massachusetts, built in 1835, connected 
Boston and Lowell, and the first in Kentucky, built in the 
same year, connected Lexington and Frankfort. By the 
end of the decade there were more than twenty-eight hun- 
dred miles of railroad in use. By 1850 this mileage had 
increased to nine thousand, and by i860 to nearly thirty- 
one thousand. Meanwhile works for the manufacture of 
locomotive engines and cars had been established in Phila- 
delphia and elsewhere by JVIathias Baldwin and others, 
and coal from the Pennsylvania mines had come into gen- 
eral use to generate motive power for locomotive engines 
and mills. 

As a result of the strong westward current of migration, 
at first over the turnpikes and by canals, and later by way 
of the railroads, the population of the great states of the 
West and Southwest grew with marvellous rapidity. Ohio, 
which contained somewhat more than half a million people 
in 1820, had nine hundred thousand in 1830, a million and 
a half in 1840 and two and a third millions by i860. Indi- 
ana leaped from 147,000 in 1820 to 686,000 in 1840 and to 
double these figures in i860. In the decade from 1820 to 
1830 Illinois trebled her population of fifty-five thousand. 




PETER cooper's WORKING MODEL FOR A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE, 
"TOM THUMB." 
First used between Baltimore and Ellicott's Mills, August 28, 1830. 
By courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. 



132 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

By 1840 there were in the state not far from half a million 
people; by 1850 there were 851,000, and by i860 twice as 
many — 1,71 1,000. Chicago, which was surveyed as a town 
in 1830, when there were only twelve families in the place 
besides the garrison, had acquired a population of about 
forty-five hundred in 1840. By 1850 this number had 
grown to thirty thousand, and by i860, when the city had 
become the most important railroad centre in the West, 
to considerably over a hundred thousand. The Southwest 
too shared this remarkable growth. St. Louis, which con- 
tained about forty-six hundred people in 1820, had more 
than sixteen thousand in 1840 and one hundred and sixty 
thousand in i860. The centre of population meanwhile 
was moving westward at the rate of from forty to sixty 
miles in each decade, on or near the thirty-ninth parallel of 
latitude. In 1820 this centre was just west of the state 
line now separating Virginia and West Virginia. In the 
decade from 1850 to i860, however, it moved out of West 
Virginia and into southern Ohio, to a point almost due 
south of Columbus. 

In the early part of this period the migratory movement 
was made up almost wholly of Americans leaving the East 
for the more promising West, where land was cheap and 
the soil was rich. Later, however, in the 'forties and 'fif- 
ties, there was a large and important admixture of foreign 
immigrants who went to swell the human tide flowing across 
the AUeghanies. The quality of this immigration was of 
the best — English, Scotch, Irish, German and Scandina- 
vian. The volume became greatest when the famine in 
Ireland in 1846 and the revolution of 1848 in Germany 
drove hundreds of thousands of peasants and mechanics 




- c 

a 



134 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

across the ocean. In 1831 the arrivincj immigrants num- 
bered less than twenty-three thousand. Bv 1842, however, 
drawn by the alluring prospects which the newly-opened 
lands of the West held out, they numbered for the first 
time more than a hundred thousand. A few years later 
the stream became what was for those years a torrent, the 
number arriving in 1846 being 154,416; in 1847, 234,968; 
and in 1850, 310,004. In 1854 the high-water mark for 
this period was reached — 427,853, after which there was a 
recession which became more marked during the Civil War. 
In the decade from 1845 to 1855 more than a million and 
a quarter Irish immigrants came to America. The total 
number of immigrants arriving from 182 1 to 1850, inclusive, 
was considerably over five millions. Ninety-five i)er cent 
of these millions of foreigners made homes for themselves 
in the North and in the West, instinctively avoiding the 
states in which slave labor prevailed. Knowing nothing of 
state rights or sectional jealousies, but recognizing America 
only as the nation that offered them political and religious 
liberty and a living, they naturally gave their support to 
the Union in the conflict that arose soon after the large 
majority of them arrived in America. It remains only to 
add that the total population of the United States, which 
was somewhat more than nine and a half millions in 1820, 
had grown to nearly thirty-one and a half millions in i860. 
These great movements of population, with the increased 
demand which they created for commodities and facilities 
of all kinds, were an enormous stimulus to the inventive 
faculty and mechanical ingenuity of the people. Thus 
gas began to be manufactured and distributed in Baltimore 
in 182 1 and was in general use in the larger cities by the end 



EXTENSION OF THE NATIONAL DOMAIN 135 

of the decade. The important newspapers began to be 
printed on cyhnder presses. Cyrus Hall McCormick, a 
Virginian who later made Chicago his home, constructed a 
reaping machine in 1831, the first of a series of inventions 
that made farming on a large scale possible. In 1820 the 
total output of anthracite coal in the Lehigh Valley mines 
was three hundred and sixty-five tons; ten years later the 
demand had increased to such an extent that one hundred 
and seventy-five thousand tons were mined. A decade 
and a half later two inventions were perfected which exerted 
a wide influence on the commercial and the domestic life of 
the people — the telegraph in 1844 by Professor S. F. B. 
Morse and the sewing-machine, a year later, by EHas Howe, 
both of these men being natives of Massachusetts. 

Additions, wide in extent and of incalculable value, were 
made to the area of the national domain in this memorable 
epoch, and many new states were admitted to the federal 
Union. As a result of General Jackson's successful cam- 
paign against the Seminole Indians in 18 18, the Floridas 
were purchased from Spain for five million dollars. The 
revolution in 1835, by which the Texans won their inde- 
pendence from Mexico, was followed ten years later, under 
the Polk administration, by war between the United States 
and Mexico, whose territorial possessions to the north, 
extensive in area, but ill-defined and poorly defended, lay 
across the natural pathway westward of the restless, push- 
ing people of the southwestern states, and formed a prize 
upon which the slave power was especially eager to lay its 
hands. The American troops under General Zachary Tay- 
lor and General Winfield Scott being successful at every 
point in this war of territorial aggrandizement, Mexico, in 



136 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

making peace in 1848, was forced to cede to the United 
States, for a consideration of eighteen million dollars, the 
vast territory, half a million square miles in extent, con- 
sisting of Nevada, Utah, the greater part of Arizona and 
the western portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Cali- 
fornia was also included in the ceded territory, although a 
year or two earlier the American pioneers in that region, 
under the leadership of Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who 
was in charge of a government exploring expedition, and 
with the co-operation of one or two vessels of the United 
States navy, had proclaimed and had won the independence 
of California from the Mexican authorities. 

In the same year that peace was made, 1848, gold was 
discovered in California, and by the end of 1849 there were 
fully a hundred thousand gold-seekers in this new Eldorado 
• — men who had come overland by the Santa Fe and other 
transcontinental trails, across the Isthmus of Panama, or 
around Cape Horn in sailing-vessels. In the decade from 
1850 to 1859 they and those who followed them mined gold 
to the value of more than fifty million dollars. The admit- 
tance of Texas alone to the federal Union added to the 
United States more than the equivalent of the combined 
areas of France, England, Scotland and Ireland, Belgium, 
Holland and Switzerland — three hundred and seventy 
thousand square miles. And at about the same time, 1846, 
the boundary of the Oregon country, which had been jointly 
occupied by the United States and England, was defined, 
so that by the end of this decade the limits of the United 
States proper were practically determined as they exist 
to-day. 

Meanwhile, in consequence of the expansion westward 



THE TARIFF AN EARLY ISSUE 137 

of the population and of the large volume of foreign immi- 
gration, new states were rapidly received into the federal 
Union, the balance of political power being preserved by 
the admittance of an equal number of southern and northern 
states. Louisiana having become a state on the eve of the 
War of 181 2, half a dozen other states quahfied and were 
admitted in the stirring years immediately following the 
war — Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 181 7, Ilhnois in 1818, 
Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1820 and Missouri in 1821. 
Arkansas and Michigan came into the Union in 1836 and 
1837 respectively. In the next decade a new group of 
states qualified, three of them in consequence of the exten- 
sion of the national boundary — Florida and Texas in 1845 
and California in 1850, while Iowa, admitted in 1846, and 
Wisconsin, in 1848, testified to the rapidity with which the 
northwest was being peopled. 

With the remarkable increase of population in nearly 
all parts of the country, industries multiphed and the de- 
mand from the manufacturers of the North for higher duties 
became more and more insistent. The half-dozen or more 
tariff bills that became laws between 1816 and 1846 re- 
flected, first, the growth, in response to this demand, of the 
protectionist idea until it culminated in the act of 1832 in 
which the theory of protection was elaborated and system- 
atized in a practical form; and, second, the reaction, as a 
result of the discontent and financial distress in the South, 
toward lower duties, modified protection, and, finally, a 
tariff for revenue only, with all forms of protection elimi- 
nated. Andrew Jackson, whose two terms of office as Pres- 
ident extended from 1829 to 1837, was the representative 
of the new Democracy of the agricultural South, with its 



138 INDUSTRIAL DEVFXOPMENT 

opposition to high tariffs and internal improvements at the 
expense of the nation, which formed the platform of the 
Clay-Adams wing of the party in the North. Out of this 
divergence grew the modern Democratic part}- and the 
Whigs and their successors, the Republicans. 

The old South, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas, had 
not shared in the prosperity of the North and attributed its 
decline in wealth and in influence to the operation of the 
protective tariff. The real causes were to be found in the 
shifting of the centre of cotton culture from the outworn 
fields of the old South to the richer uplands of the Gulf 
states; in the loss of white population due to this south- 
westward movement, and in the system of plantation life 
and of slave labor which was the barrier that prevented 
immigrants from seeking homes in the South. When the 
Gulf states, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, began to 
raise cotton on their fertile uplands, the total i)roduction 
increased year by year to such an extent as to send the 
export price, sixteen and a half cents a pound in 182 1, down 
to nine cents in 1830. Meanwhile many additional mills 
were building in New England, the products of whose cot- 
ton factories rose in value from two and a half million 
dollars in 1820 to fifteen and a half millions in 1831, while 
the value of the woollen products increased in the same 
period from less than one to more than eleven million 
dollars. 

The financial depression in the South, which was thus 
due to special causes and which embarrassed, in their well- 
earned retirement, even those leaders of the old Republican 
party. Jefferson, Matlison and Monroe, was followed in 
1837 by a panic of general scope caused by over-speculation 



ORIGIN OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE 139 

in government lands, by extravagance, state and national, 
in canal and road building, and by the lack of any banking 
system adequate to care properly for the greatly increased 
business of the country. Jackson, unable to use its ofifices 
as rewards for party services, had driven the United States 
Bank out of business by withdrawing from it the govern- 
ment deposits; and in this emergency the imperfectly or- 
ganized state banks undertook to finance the public as well 
as the private enterprises of the day. When, however, the 
government decided that payment for government lands 
must be made in gold and silver, the unstable foundations 
on which these state banks rested crumbled and precipi- 
tated a crash. It was several years before the country 
worked its way out of the financial chaos that followed. 

By far the most important international incident of these 
years was the enunciation by President Monroe in 1823 
of the broad general principle, to which later the name of 
the Monroe Doctrine was given, that the United States 
would regard as inimical to its interests any armed inter- 
ference of a foreign power in the political or territorial 
affairs of a state in North or South America. This dec- 
laration became necessary because of the fear lest the re- 
actionary Holy Alliance formed by Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia, might attempt to aid Spain in recovering the con- 
trol of her revolted American colonies. The adoption of 
this policy was a warning also against further colonization 
as well as against any attempt that might be contemplated 
to substitute, in this or that instance, a monarchical for a 
republican form of government. The re-enunciation of 
this doctrine of non-interference seventy years later by 
President Cleveland, in the Venezuela boundary case, went 



I40 INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

far to establish it as the cardinal principle of the foreign 
policy of the United States. 

Although the treaty ending the War of 1812 had left in 
the air the question of the impressment of American sea- 
men, there was no further friction from this cause. Im- 
pressment was a practice which became obsolete from the 
moment when the Constitution poured her first broadside 
into the Guerriere. 



XIII 

HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

The remarkable growth throughout the United States 
from 1820 to i860 of population, facihties for transporta- 
tion and industries of all varieties had its counterpart dur- 
ing the same period in the phenomenal development and 
world-wide activity of American shipping interests. Only 
temporarily held in check by the War of 181 2, the daring 
enterprise of American merchants and of American sea- 
men, which had been so conspicuously displayed from 1800 
to 1 8 10, sprang into life with fresh vigor as soon as peace 
was made. z\gain the shipyards along the New England 
coast became centres of active industry. So abundant 
were the supplies of suitable timber that ships could be 
built in New England at a saving of fully one-fifth over the 
cost in old England. So tough and so well seasoned were 
the woods which these experienced shipbuilders used and 
so superior was their workmanship that many of these ves- 
sels were in active service twenty and even thirty years, 
although the normal life of a merchant-vessel engaged in 
the ocean carrying trade was supposed to be only fifteen. 
So able to carry sail were these carefully and stoutly built 
ships and barks and so efficient were their sailing masters 
and their smaller crews in getting the utmost speed 'out of 
them that they habitually made four voyages while British 
and Dutch merchantmen of practically like tonnage were 
making three between the same ports. So high, indeed, 

141 



142 HIGH TIDE OF AIMERICAN COMMERCE 

was the reputation of these vessels that in the twenty-five 
years following the War of 1812 no fewer than three 
hundred and forty thousand tons of American-built ship- 
ping were sold to foreigners — probably more than a thou- 
sand vessels. 

Only a brief reference can be made here to some of the 
more important aspects of the wonderfully varied maritime 
life, always dignified and impressive and often tinged with 
romance and picturesqueness, which grew out of these con- 
ditions. The first step in the evolutionary process was 
the establishment, in 1816 and in the years following, of 
several sailing packet lines for the carriage, between Ameri- 
can and European ports, of passengers and of high-class 
freights. These packets, all of which were of American 
build, thus met the need of a larger and somewhat faster 
type of vessel, with better accommodations for passengers 
than the merchantmen of that day could supply, and with 
regular days for sailing. They were built with hulls of 
unusual strength and with moderate spars and canvas, 
being thus especially adapted to meet the boisterous 
weather of the north Atlantic. The service drew to its 
ranks the best seamen of the American merchant marine, 
who were justly proud of their ships and of their records, 
the rivalry between the different lines being keen. Up to 
1830 the packets were more celebrated for the comparative 
comfort which they offered to passengers than for their 
speed. After that date, however, the rivalry of the different 
lines produced a faster type of vessel, approaching the 
clippers of a later period. 

These Yankee packets were the precursors of the wooden 
side-wheel transatlantic steamships and were of the highest 



144 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

value in the development of American commerce. Their 
popularity and their prosperity were great. For years 
they formed the principal channel through which the 
enormous stream of immigration flowed to America. One 
vessel of the Black Ball packet line had a record, during 
her long life of twenty-nine years, of one hundred and 
sixteen round passages between New York and Liverpool. 
In that time, and without the loss of a seaman, a sail or 
a spar, she had brought thirty thousand immigrants to 
America, no fewer than fifteen hundred births and two 
hundred marriages having taken place among her passen- 
gers. 

In this memorable decade from 182 1 to 1830 the annual 
value of the total American exports and imports, excluding 
gold and silver, averaged about >$i42, 400,000, and over 
ninety per cent of all this merchandise was carried in 
American vessels, a record excelled only in the year 18 10, 
and then only shghtly, at the culmination of the almost 
equally prosperous epoch preceding the War of 181 2. It 
was not surprising, therefore, that the London Times, in 
May, 1827, sounded a note of alarm in these words: "We 
have closed the West Indies against America from feelings 
of commercial rivalry. Its active seamen have already 
engrossed an important branch of our carrying trade to 
the Eastern Indies. Her starred flag is now conspicuous on 
every sea and will soon defy our thunder. " 

Shut out by this policy from trade with British West 
Indian ports, American merchants had been forced more 
and more to seek other and more distant markets for their 
wares and for return cargoes. Vessels from the port of 
Salem were, as ever, the leaders in this trade with Africa, 



NEW ENGLAND WHALERS 145 

South America, China, India, and the islands of the Far 
East. Not infrequently, it must be admitted, their out- 
going cargoes, especially those for the coast of Africa, were 
largely composed of New England rum, gunpowder, and 
tobacco. But they brought back freights that filled the 
air of the old Puritan town with the fragrance of far- 
distant lands and gave wealth and influence to their own- 
ers. And this rich and profitable commerce was developed 
and carried on for years in vessels of rarely more than 
three hundred tons. 

Among the hardiest and most venturesome of these sea- 
men who were carrying the "starred flag" into every sea 
were the New England whalemen. From small beginnings in 
1816, when only four or five whaling vessels remained of the 
large fleet of earlier years, the industry increased steadily, 
the possibility of quick and big profits proving to be highly 
attractive to both capital and men. By 1845 the tonnage 
of American vessels engaged in whaling had grown to about 
191,000, figures that were surpassed only in 1858 when the 
tonnage was 198,594. The centres of this important in- 
dustry were New Bedford and Nantucket, and the years 
in which the greatest profits were secured were from 1830 
to 1840. Sperm-whales, the most valuable species, were 
sought in the temperate and tropic waters of the Atlantic 
and Pacific. Right or bowhead whales, from which whale- 
bone and an inferior quality of oil were procured, were 
found in the north and south polar seas. From voyages of 
from one to four years the more successful of these whalers 
brought back catches varying in value from forty to one 
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. The risks were 
so great, however, that in their most prosperous years fully 



146 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

one-third of the whalers made unprofitable voyages, while 
by 1858 only one out of every three of the sixty-eight 
whalers arriving at New Bedford and Fairhaven more than 
paid expenses, these two communities losing fully a million 
dollars in this disastrous season. 

The decline in the whaling industry had thus set in many 
years before 1859 when petroleum was discovered in Penn- 
sylvania and cannot be attributed to this cause or to the 
Civil War. The real causes were the growing scarcity of 
whales, the greatly increased cost of fitting out whaling 
vessels and of conducting the industry, the superior attrac- 
tions which manufactures offered to capital, and the dete- 
rioration in the character of the crews, ship-owners being 
obliged to accept Portuguese, negroes, and even Sandwich 
Islanders, in place of the farmers' sons from northern New 
England who for a quarter of a century had been a most 
valuable source of supply. 

By far the most important incident of this period, how- 
ever, was the successful application of steam-power to 
side-wheel, wooden-hull vessels in the transatlantic service. 
Two English-built steamships, one of which crossed the At- 
lantic in fourteen days, proved, in 1838, the practicability 
of this type of vessel for this service and prepared the way 
for the British ultimately to displace the Yankee packet. 
With the assurance of a generous mail subsidy from the 
British government, Samuel Cunard and his associates built 
four steamships of moderate size and power, with wooden 
hulls and side wheels, which, in 1840, began a regular ser- 
vice between Liverpool and Boston. 

From this small beginning developed the subsidized 
British steamship lines which gradually extended in all 



ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC STEAMSHIPS 147 

directions. Five years passed before the Congress of the 
United States met this challenge by voting mail subsidies 
to American steamships. With this stimulus and with 
the further encouragement of another law to the same end 
enacted in 1847, Edward K. CoHins established a steamship 
line between New York and Liverpool which included four 
fine wooden, side-wheel vessels of nearly three thousand 
tons each, built from designs by George Steers, who also 
drew the plans from which the famous schooner-yacht 
America was built. The screw propeller, which Ericsson, 
a Swedish engineer of originality and ability, had invented, 
was slow in coming into use, marine engineers and ship- 
builders believing for years that paddle-wheels were more 
practicable and more powerful than propellers. Ericsson 
came to the United States from England in 1839, and two 
years later he had prepared for the government designs for 
the Princeton, the first warship to have a screw propeller 
below the water-line, out of reach of the enemy's shot. 

In 185 1 the tonnage of British and American steamships 
registered for the deep-sea trade was practically equal — 
65,921 British and 62,391 American. A considerable por- 
tion of this tonnage lay in the steamships of the Pacific 
Mail Company. Beginning in 1848 this company built a 
splendid fleet of nearly thirty vessels for the Panama and 
Cahfornia branches of their business, which, after the dis- 
covery of gold on the Pacific coast, assumed huge propor- 
tions and became very profitable. These steamships also 
had the benefit of a substantial mail subsidy. By 1855 
the tonnage of American steamships had grown from the 
small beginning of 16,068 in 1848 to its maximum point 
prior to the Civil War, 115,045. 



148 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

This memorable year, however, 1855, proved to be the 
turning-point in the history of the merchant marine of the 
United States. In that year Congress practically reversed 
the policy as to mail subsidies which it had adopted ten 
years earlier, and under which the American steamship 
lines for a decade had held their own very well in competi- 
tion with the British subsidized lines, notwithstanding the 
advantage of a five years' start which the latter had enjoyed. 
This radical change of policy, which had the effect of cut- 
ting down materially the mail subsidy heretofore granted to 
the Collins line and of reducing, though less seriously, that 
of the Pacific Mail Company, was mainly due to the jealousy 
which had developed in the South, partly owing to the 
agitation over the question of slavery, and in the agricult- 
ural West, toward the shipping interests of the northern 
seaboard. To add to its other embarrassments, the Collins 
line in the same fateful year, 1855, lost two of its steam- 
ships, the Arctic and the Pacific. These disasters not only 
crippled the line severely, but, taken with the partial with- 
drawal of government aid and the attacks in Congress on 
American shipping interests, discouraged the building of 
new vessels of this type. In three years the registered 
tonnage of American steamships fell to 78,027. 

In 1855 there were registered the enormous total of 
2,348,358 tons of American deep-sea shipping, and so great 
was the demand for vessels that more than five hundred 
of different types, ships, barks and brigs, all designed for 
the ocean carrying trade, were launched from American 
yards. Only once later, in i860, were these tonnage figures 
surpassed and then only slightly. The tonnage had more 
than doubled since 1846 when it was 943,307. And in the 



YANKEE CLIPPERS AND THEIR RECORDS 149 

five years from 1851 to 1855 inclusive one hundred and 
seventy thousand tons of American-built vessels were sold 
to English and other foreign buyers. 

This rapid growth was due less to the wooden-hull steam- 
ships that were built in the yards along the East River at 
New York than to the great fleet of clippers which American 
merchants and American ship-builders constructed in Bos- 
ton, New York and Baltimore in their endeavor to hold the 
ocean carrying trade and to increase it, even in competition 
with the subsidized lines of British steamships. These 
great vessels, one of which in the yards of the famous 
Boston builder, Donald McKay, was the inspiration for 
Longfellow's poem, "The Building of the Ship," varied in 
tonnage from a thousand to as high as twenty-four hundred. 
In power, beauty and speed they represented the highest 
point ever reached by the designers and builders of mer- 
chant vessels. The California trade, which reached huge 
proportions almost at a bound in 1849 and 1850, and which 
was restricted, under the coastwise law passed by Congress 
in 181 7, to vessels of American registry, gave a mighty 
impetus for a "few years to the building of this type of 
ship. The war in the Crimea in 1854 gave employment to 
many of these Yankee clippers as transports and supply 
ships. They became immediately also an influential fac- 
tor in the commerce between the United States and the Far 
East. 

Some of the record runs which these powerful and beau- 
tiful ships made in the hands of their bold and skilful Yan- 
kee crews seem incredible : fourteen days, for example, 
from New York to Portsmouth, England, where the clip- 
per Palestine landed her passengers ahead of the Cunard 



I50 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

steamshi}) which had sailed on the same day; ninety days 
from New York to San Francisco, on one of which the 
cUpper Flying Cloud made three hundred and seventy- 
four miles; sixty-three days from Melbourne to Liverpool; 
eighty-four days from Canton to New York; and ninety- 
six days from Manila to Salem, were some of the most 
celebrated runs of these famous Yankee clippers. 

The chief sources of the export wealth of the United 
States in these years when its ships were on the crest of the 
wave of prosperity were agricultural. During the ten years 
from 1 85 1 to i860 the products of American farms and 
plantations — wheat, flour, rice, hops, apples, corn and 
cornmeal, tobacco, cotton, potatoes, sugar raw and refined, 
cheese, cattle and beef and pork products — constituted on 
the average about eighty-two per cent of all the exports 
from the United States. The value of these agricultural 
exports increased meanwhile from nearly $147,000,000 in 
185 1 to more than $261,000,000 in i860. In the larger 
view of this commercial epoch the total American exports 
to Europe grew in value from about $36,000,000 in 182 1 to 
nearly $250,000,000 in i860, and, to all Other countries, 
from $19,000,000 to $84,000,000 in the same interval. 
These exports were, of course, paid for by the imports of 
hardware, silks, oils, wines, teas, cofTees, spices, etc., to 
the United States. At the outset, in 1821, the figures 
balanced almost evenly. In i860, however, the imports 
exceeded the exports in value by about $20,000,000. 

The prosperity which the American merchant marine en- 
joyed between 1820 and i860 followed the adoption by the 
government in 181 5 of the pohcy of reciprocity in shipping 
— a poKcy that has not been deviated from since that date. 




Z 5 
H -a, 



O « 

a g 
o o 



PL, rf 

h-) cd 



152 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

In the early years of the nation's hfe and for a brief period 
after 1815, discriminating duties favoring American ves- 
sels were in force. These duties were laid, however, in re- 
taliation for similar duties exacted by other nations and 
were justifiable for this purpose. Discrimination, however, 
as a means of building up a merchant marine is an ac- 
knowledged failure and has everywhere been abandoned 
in favor of reciprocity. The percentage of American mer- 
chandise carried in the foreign trade of American ships fell 
off somewhat, it is true, in the years from 183 1 to 1S60. 
The evidence, however, of the benefits of the policy of 
reciprocity, and of the activity and energy of American 
shipping interests, was to be found in the constantly in- 
creasing tonnage of ocean-going vessels flying the United 
States flag, a large percentage of which were engaged in 
the carrying trade between foreign countries, and rarely 
entered or cleared from an American port. Thus in the 
forty years from 1820 to i860 the tonnage of United States 
shipping registered for the foreign trade increased fourfold, 
while that of the entire British Empire only doubled. 

The decline in American shipping was due to various 
causes: to the virtual abandonment by Congress in 1855 
of the policy of subsidies; to the competition of cheaply- 
built foreign iron steamships, which after 1843 gradually 
displaced the wooden ships, barks and brigs, in the build- 
ing and sailing of which Americans had been supreme; to 
the effects of the Civil War; to the existence of the law 
passed in 1792 prohibiting the granting of American regis- 
try to foreign-built ships; and, finally, to broad economic 
causes operating to diminish the interest of the American 
people in the ocean carrying trade. With half a continent 



i 



OUTLOOK FOR THE MERCHANT MARINE 153 

to conquer, with forests to fell and farms to clear and to 
cultivate, with cities to build and railways to construct, 
with exhaustless mineral riches awaiting the miner, and 
with manufactures to create in order to supply the needs of 
their own milhons, it was not unnatural that as the years 
passed a greater and a greater share of the energy and of 
the capital of the people of the United States should be di- 
verted from the high seas to these inland sources of wealth 
lying so invitingly before them. 

If the experience of the most enhghtened nations which 
have developed their shipping to a high point is to be ac- 
cepted as a guide, the American merchant marine can be 
revived only by a policy, under reciprocity, combining sub- 
sidies for the encouragement of shipbuilding, the importa- 
tion, free of duty, of all materials for the construction and 
unrestricted use of steamships, and free ships, for the pri- 
mary political advantage of displaying the American flag 
in foreign ports. The experts seem to be agreed that, so 
far as the foreign carrying trade is concerned, the advan- 
tages to be derived from free ships, under the repeal of the 
law of 1792, would be mainly political rather than economic, 
the increased expense of maintenance under the American 
flag more than neutralizing the saving in the initial cost of 
the foreign-built vessel. 

The first step toward free materials for shipbuilding was 
taken by Congress in 1872. The advance in the same 
direction since then has been constant, until at the present 
time, under the Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, all materials 
for the construction of steamships or sailing-vessels are 
imported free of duty, with the single condition that ves- 
sels so constructed in whole or in part shall not engage in 



154 HIGH TIDE OF AMERICAN COMMERCE 

the coastwise trade of the United States for more than six 
months in the year. When this single restriction is re- 
moved, absolute free trade in all the materials for ship- 
building will have been established. 



XIV 
GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

The years from 1820 to i860 proved to be the golden age 
of American letters, as well as a period of remarkable indus- 
trial energy and of extraordinary commercial activityo Al- 
though in two wars the American people had won first their 
poHtical and later their commercial independence from 
Great Britain, even their best educated men continued 
to show in intellectual matters a deference to English 
opinion and a sensitiveness to English criticism which 
were the unmistakable signs of national youth and inex- 
perience. That an American could write anything in 
prose or verse above the level of mediocrity was wellnigh 
unthinkable. 

It was entirely consistent with this provincial state of 
mind for the editors of The North American Review, newly 
estabhshed in Boston, to suspect at first that the lines called 
" Thanatopsis, " which young Bryant's father left with 
them one day, early in the summer of 18 17, were of English 
origin, for it was incredible to them that any American 
could have written such a poem. The same lack of self- 
confidence was illustrated in the case of Cooper's first novel, 
Precaution, which grew out of his determination to write 
a better story of English life than the English novel which 
he then chanced to be reading. For, in order to win for 
the book the widest possible audience and at the same 
time to disarm the reviewers. Cooper gave to the novel not 



156 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

only an English subject but the pretense of Enghsh author- 
ship. Fifteen years later Poe was trying, in The Southern 
Literary Messenger, of which he was the editor, to check the 
tendency to go to the other extreme of patriotic and indis- 
criminate praise for every American Kterary production 
simply because it was American — a tendency which afforded 
even clearer proof of the national inexperience than was 
indicated by the inabihty to judge the value of a book 
until the English stamp of approval or disapproval had 
been placed upon it. 

The truth was that only time, with growth and ex- 
perience, could create a national self-confidence and an 
indifference to foreign opinion in literary affairs which 
should operate unconsciously. The Civil War carried the 
nation a long way toward this goal, but the war with 
Spain had to be fought before it was made plain to every 
one that at last the goal had been reached. 

Many stimulating influences were at work, especially in 
New England in these early years, urging men's minds 
toward literary expression. Scott and Byron were in the 
full exercise of their great powers, and new novels and 
poems by them were awaited with a curiosity and read 
with an avidity which would be incomprehensible to the 
present book-surfeited generation. Men of literary taste 
like Irving were deeply affected by European travel and 
by contact with scenes "rich," as he himself notes, "in 
storied and poetical association." Scholars like Ticknor, 
Everett and Bancroft, who had passed several years in 
Europe and especially in Germany, where Goethe was the 
commanding figure in the romantic movement of the time, 
on returning and beginning the teaching of Greek, French, 



IRVING AND COOPER 157 

Spanish or Belles Lettres, set in motion powerful currents 
of new ideas or diverted old ideas into new channels. Under 
the inspiring leadership of Channing Unitarianism was dis- 
placing Calvinism over a considerable area, especially in 
New England, "substituting the doctrine of hope for the 
dogma of dread." The way was thus preparing for Tran- 
scendentalism, which was to make use of all the wisdom 
attainable by its disciples in the effort, ardent rather than 
well considered, to formulate a new philosophy of ideahsm. 

The fiction of this epoch, which may be said to have begun 
with the appearance, in 1819, of "Rip Van Winkle" and 
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in Irving's Skdch-Book, 
and to have reached its culmination in 1850 in Hawthorne's 
masterpiece. The Scarlet Letter, including in the interval 
the novels of Cooper and the tales of Poe, possessed great 
variety both of theme and of treatment. Irving had pub- 
lished in 1809 his Knickerbocker History of New York, the 
youthful vivacity and exuberant humor of which remain 
fresh to-day, after more than a century of life. It was, how- 
ever, the favor with which his Sketch-Book and Bracehridge 
Hall were received, in England as well as in his native 
land, that determined his career, he being thus the first 
American author to whom the highly-prized foreign recog- 
nition was accorded. The splendor and romance of old 
Spain had an even greater attraction for him than historic 
and rural England, and found expression in his Moorish 
Chronicles, his Alhamhra and in his biographies of Mahomet 
and Columbus, revealing to the hungry American imagina- 
tion a world of new and undreamed-of wonder and beauty. 

Cooper, after his first timid venture in Precaution, turned, 
under the inspiration of Scott's novels, to American his- 



158 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

torical and romantic subjects with which he was familiar, 
producing rapidly first the Revolutionary story The Spy 
and then The Pioneers and The Pilot, his motive in the last 
named being frankly to write a story which should be truer 
to the real Hfe of the sea, on which he had had abundant 
experience both in the merchant service and in the navy, 
than was Scott's Pirate. With these and the other novels 
which he pubHshed in the following decade, and especially 
with the Leather-Stocking tales, he captured the reading 
public not only of his own country but of England and the 
continent of Europe as well. To foreign readers he opened 
the door to a new and fascinating world of men, manners, 
customs and scenery, and no American novehst, save per- 
haps Mrs. Stowe, has been so widely translated or so eagerly 
read. His industry, moreover, was prodigious, the list of 
his publications in the appendix to Professor Lounsbury's 
life including no fewer than seventy-one titles. 

Aside from his novels, of which there are more than 
thirty, Cooper's most important work was his History of 
the United States Navy. No little historical value, how- 
ever, attaches to the novels themselves. Colonel Roose- 
velt in his Naval War of 181 2 refers to Miles Wallin^ford, 
Home as Found and The Pilot as giving a far better idea of 
the American seamen of the period than that to be got from 
any history. Despite the defects of his style which were 
largely due to the speed with which he produced book after 
book, he succeeded in holding the interest of his readers, 
setting against the vivid background of the forests, lakes, 
and hills of his native land which he knew so well, and of 
the sea with the varying moods of which he was equally 
familiar, a group of original characters — Natty Bumppo, 



POE'S CHARACTERS AND TECHNIQUE 159 

Long Tom Coffin, Uncas, Harvey Birch, etc. — so individual, 
so racy and of such universal human appeal through the 
manly virtues which their actions reveal, that their perma- 
nent place in American hterature seems to be assured. 
"He knew men," says Mr. Brownell in his American 
Prose Masters, "as Lincoln knew them — which is to say, 
very differently from Dumas and Stevenson." Patriotic, 
independent, courageous, a lover of truth, his weaknesses 
were those of temper, not of character. 

No sha;rper contrast could be imagined than that pre- 
sented by the sohd reahty, on the one hand, of Cooper's 
backgrounds and characters, even his somewhat idealized 
savages, and the essential unreality, on the other of the 
personages and scenes in the tales which Poe produced in 
the course of his brief and stormy career. These began with 
"A MS. Found in a Bottle," for which, in 1833, ^^ ^^~ 
ceived a prize of one hundred dollars from The Saturday 
Visitor, of Baltimore. From this time on his stories were 
published in various periodicals and newspapers, "The 
Murders in the Rue Morgue," which appeared in 1841, 
establishing on a firm basis his popularity, which has never 
waned, in Paris. These tales, some of them, like "The 
Fall of the House of Usher, " purely imaginative, and others, 
like the balloon hoax, the product of the author's excur- 
sions into popular science, possessed an individuality, a 
quahty, an atmosphere, a mood which were peculiar to 
their author and new to literature. They revealed Poe's 
mastery of technique, being polished to an exquisite finish. 
They gave to the short story, which had been introduced 
by Irving, a new and alluring form which had its effect upon 
European as well as upon native literature. By them their 



i6o GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

author, proud, solitary, self-indulgent, won a unique place 
in American letters. Through them his constant effort 
was to mystify, to make the false appear to be the true, to 
produce theatrical effects and to create illusions which were 
sufficiently plausible to bhnd the reader, temporarily at 
least, to their improbability, even impossibility. And to 
this task he brought an eccentrically equipped mind, largely 
self-trained, and a veritable genius for liter<iry form. 

In comparison with Poe, Hawthorne's powers were slow 
in maturing. Graduated from Bowdoin in 1825, he re- 
turned to his mother's home in Salem where in solitude he 
passed years, meditating, brooding, writing, getting a short 
story published from time to time, until in 1837 the first 
series of his Twice-Told Tales was brought out in book form, 
the second series not appearing until 1845. Marriage, life 
in Concord, a brief sojourn with the Brook Farm com- 
munity and, above all, contact with the world of reality 
during the three years from 1846 to 1849 while he was sur- 
veyor in the Salem Custom House, gave Hawthorne the 
experience necessary to quahfy him for his highest achieve- 
ment and to spur him to his utmost endeavor. In the next 
few years he published his most characteristic books — The 
Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithe- 
dale Romance, the first two of which in particular testified 
to the strength of the Puritan strain of blood in his veins. 
The theme that recurs again and again in his writings of 
the inevitable consequences of hereditary sin came to him 
direct from his stern, even cruel, Puritan ancestry. He 
brought this idea to its highest development in The Scarlet 
Letter, the characters in which are at the same time the 
most real of all of his creations. Like Poe he gave atmos- 



DANA, MRS. STOWE AND BRYANT i6i 

phere and color to his slightest production, imparting to it 
an individual quality both of substance and of form in 
which lies its greatest charm. 

No review, however brief, of the fiction of this period 
would be complete which failed at least to mention two 
remarkable books which grew directly out of very different 
phases of the life of the American people — Dana's narra- 
tive of his Two -Years before the Mast, published in 1841, a 
classic of the sea as the New England sailors followed it 
seventy-five years ago, and Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, which was published in March, 1852, and which sold 
more than three hundred thousand copies within the 
twelvemonth. Mrs. Stowe's famous story was forthwith 
translated into many foreign tongues. The British Mu- 
seum contains copies of the novel in a score of different 
European languages, and these represent only half the 
tongues into which it has been translated. No book ever 
published in the United States, it is safe to say, has had the 
world-wide audience that Uncle Toms Cabin won for itself. 

The poetry of this period began with Bryant's "Thana- 
topsis, " which Swinburne, writing to Stedman many years 
later, characterized as the most august meditation of a 
solitary philosopher, but in which he failed to find "the 
echo of a single note of song, " and ended with the gay and 
witty society verse and college anniversary productions in 
which, at the opposite end of the scale, the emancipated 
Puritan spirit of Oliver Wendell Holmes found joyous 
expression. Bryant, although born in western Massachu- 
setts and inheriting Puritan traditions, removed to New 
York City and became a journalist, his poetical reputation 
resting upon his first thin volume which contained the 



i62 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

lines ''To a Waterfowl" as well as his "Thanatopsis. " He 
is thus usually classed with the Knickerbocker school of 
Irving, Cooper and Poe, rather than with the later New 
Englanders. 

The pulse, that is, the rhythm, of music which Swin- 
burne found wanting in Bryant, was the distinguishing 
note of the poems which Poe began to publish with Tamer- 
lane in 1827 and which he contributed to various i)eriodi- 
cals or occasionally issued in book form throughout his life. 
His verse, with its recurring cadences and its haunting 
melody, wellnigh perfect technically, and pitched in the 
invariable minor key from which there was no modulation, 
illustrated repeatedly his philosophy of the art of poetry, 
the central idea of which was that beauty, and beauty alone, 
was the one quality to be attained, truth from his point of 
view being negligible. 

The most characteristic product of Lowell's poetic talent 
is to be found in The Biglow Papers, the publication of the 
first series of which was begun in The Boston Courier in 1846. 
For the first time the wit and learning of a widely read 
scholar, who was also a man of the world and whose knowl- 
edge of human nature was profound, were brought to the 
service of the anti-slavery cause in verse set in the Yankee 
dialect, which subjected to the keenest satire and the most 
merciless ridicule the attitude and pretensions of the slave 
power, especially with reference to the war with Mexico, 
and the cant and hypocrisy of its northern sympathizers. 
Lowell's discriminating and almost equally characteristic 
Fahlc for Critics, following these Bii^low Papers in 1848, 
emphasized his intellectual versatility and his general 
cleverness as a man of letters. His "Commemoration 



i64 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

Ode," which is universally regarded as his highest poetic 
achievement, belongs of course to the period following the 
Civil War. 

Meanwhile two other New England poets, Longfellow 
and Whittier, had made reputations for themselves in very 
different fields. A native of Portland, Me., and, like Haw- 
thorne, a graduate of Bowdoin, Longfellow, after a con- 
siderable residence abroad, the effect of which showed it- 
self throughout his career as a poet, succeeded Ticknor as 
Smith Professor of French, Spanish and Belles Lettres at 
Harvard in 1836, and three years later published his first 
volume of verse. Voices of the Night. He was a student 
who found the inspiration for his poems in the historic and 
romantic legends of his own land and of foreign countries. 
Lost in these old records and in framing the pictures which 
they suggested to his fancy, he was comparatively un- 
affected by either the Transcendentalist or anti-slavery 
movement. His poems, although deficient in passion and 
fire, have a simplicity, sincerity and grace which have 
endeared them to a wide popular audience not only in 
America but in England. 

Whittier was a reformer before he was a poet and natu- 
rally directed his literary energies largel}' to the advance- 
ment of the anti-slavery cause. His first volume of verse, 
New England Legends, appeared in 1831, and the most 
popular of his longer poems, Snoiv-Boioid, in 1862. Born 
in Haverhill, Mass., in 1807, he was a thorough Quaker, 
through whose verse, nevertheless, the nobler traits of the 
Puritan character, with which he was well acquainted by 
observation and tradition, found full expression. He early 
attached himself to the anti-sla\'ery movement under the 



HISTORICAL WRITERS OF DISTINCTION 165 

leadership of Garrison, and did much by his fervent verse 
to keep the agitation alive and to win converts to the cause. 

Finally, the poems of Emerson have been happily char- 
acterized by Mr. Brownell in his American Prose Masters 
as his communion with himself, while his essays were his 
communication to the world. 

Of the writers of history in this era, four stand out with 
especial distinctness — Bancroft, Prescott, Motley and Park- 
man, all of them graduates of Harvard. Bancroft, having 
acquired a decided taste for historical studies in Germany, 
began his History of the United States soon after his return 
to America, and published the first volume in 1834, leaving 
it unfinished at his death in 1891. The work contains a 
great quantity of first-hand information, the fruit of the 
author's painstaking and laborious collection of original 
materials. In politics Bancroft's sympathies were with 
the anti-Federalist and Democratic parties. 

Gibbon's autobiography was one of the influences which 
led Prescott to devote his life to historical work, seriously 
handicapped as he was by partial bhndness. His studies, 
under the guidance of his friend Ticknor, in Spanish lit- 
erature, and the neglect of Spanish history by European 
writers, were other influences that determined his choice of 
subject. In 1837 he was able to publish his History of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, and the immediate recognition of 
the importance of the work by European scholars led to 
the appearance of Spanish, French, German, Italian and 
even Russian translations. Thus encouraged Prescott wrote 
and in time published his Conquest of Mexico and Conquest 
of Peru, the captivating style of all of his books winning for 
them a large popular as well as a scholarly audience. His 



1 66 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

death in 1859 left unfinished what would probably have been 
his greatest work, the History of I he Reign oj Philip II, King 
of Spa in. 

Meanwhile the Dutch, of whom Prescott's heroes, Charles 
V and Philip II, had been the chief oppressors, gave Motley 
his theme for his Rise of Ihe Dutch Republic, which w'as not 
published, however, until 1856, when the author was past 
forty. The researches which formed the basis of this wx)rk 
and of the History of the United Netherlands which followed 
it, together with the vivid style in which they were written, 
were accepted as further proof both of the soundness of 
American historical scholarship and of the attractiveness 
to American writers of the heroic as well as the romantic 
aspects of European history. From the point of view, 
however, of modern historical criticism, and in the light of 
later discoveries. Motley's writings would probably be char- 
acterized as brilliant rather than as altogether sound. 

Parkman chose the same path with an American back- 
ground, after he had published his California and Oregon 
Trail in 1849 and his Conspiracy of Pontiac in 1851, finding 
in the struggle between the French and the English for the 
possession of the North American continent a subject full 
of heroic achievement and of romantic color admirably 
adapted to his taste and to his graphic, virile style. The 
more important of the volumes in this scheme appeared 
subsequent to the Civil War. 

In the held of essays the decade from 1850 to i860 was 
noteworthy. The shrewd and witty breakfast-table phi- 
losophy of Dr. Holmes gave piquancy to the pages of The 
Atlantic Monthly, the publication of which was begun in 
1857 under the editorship of Lowell. Two years earlier 



i08 GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN LETTERS 

Lowell had succeeded Longfellow in the Smith Professor- 
ship at Harvard, having by foreign residence and study 
laid the foundation for the scholarship in the Romance 
languages which was to be fully revealed some years later 
in his brilliant, if somewhat discursive and inconclusive, 
essays in Among My Books. 

Of all the literary productions, however, of this epoch, 
the essays of Emerson seem, through their broad scope and 
their universal human interest, to possess the element of 
permanent value to a greater degree than the writings of 
any other American author. In their moral elevation as 
well as in their intellectual seriousness the lectures delivered 
in the 'thirties and 'forties, out of which, with wellnigh 
infinite thought and labor, the essays were wrought, were 
the product of a long line of ministerial ancestors of the 
strictest Puritan faith, the hardness and coldness of Cal- 
vinism having given place, however, to the optimistic 
idealism of the new philosophy of transcendentalism. The 
truths which these essays set forth are so fundamental in 
character, going with unerring directness to the very roots 
of human nature, and are so universal in their application 
to all times, to all places and to all peoples, that the}- con- 
stitute a body of doctrine of the highest ethical and intel- 
lectual value. They are expressed, moreover, with a 
vividness of epithet and aptness and terseness of phrase 
which no American has matched. 



XV 
SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

What were the reasons which impelled the South, be- 
tween 1820 and i860, to contend so earnestly at first for the 
extension of slavery and later for the vindication of the 
institution as an essential and necessary part of its system 
of civilization, declaring slavery finally to be as defensible 
morally as it undoubtedly was legally, under the Constitu- 
tion and under the state laws? Briefly the reasons fell into 
three principal classes. Two of these were economic and 
political, intimately related each to the other. The third, 
not definable by an epithet, grew out of the perfectly natu- 
ral feeling of resentment and anger on the part of South- 
erners, human nature being the same in the South as in the 
North, against the aboHtionists for their unceasing denun- 
ciations, after 1831, of slavery as a crime against humanity 
and as a disgrace to the nation, and of slave-owners as 
shameless and immoral "traffickers in human flesh." 

As early as 1820 the raising of slaves for the cotton- 
growers and rice-planters of the Carolinas and the Gulf 
states had come to be an important factor in the industrial 
hfe of Virginia and Maryland. Even Jeft'erson and Madi- 
son, perceiving the present, and foreseeing the great pro- 
spective, value to the border states of this traffic, became 
converts at this period to Clay's humanitarian theory that 
the extension of slavery into Missouri and over other virgin 
territory would be of great benefit, both morally and physi- 

160 



I70 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

cally, to the slaves themselves. With each decade, as the 
area of the cotton fields under cultivation grew wider, the 
value of slaves offered for sale in the border states grew 
higher. In 1807 the African slave trade had been made 
illegal, and in 1820 it had been declared by Congress to be 
piracy. By 1822 the average price of slaves, which had 
been two hundred dollars at the end of the previous cen- 
tury, had risen to three hundred dollars. Eight years later 
these figures had been doubled, six hundred dollars being 
a good price. By 1840, Texas having in the interval won 
its independence from Mexico and offering fresh and well- 
nigh limitless lands to venturesome planters, the most ser- 
viceable class of cotton hands fetched a thousand dollars or 
more each; and in the years immediately preceding the 
Civil War negro women and men of the best grade as 
workers sold at Savannah and elsewhere as high as a thou- 
sand dollars for the former and fifteen hundred for the 
latter. 

So urgent at this time became the demand for cheaper 
slave labor that appeals were made to Congress from various 
parts of the South to legalize the African slave trade. 
Southern planters, of whom Yancey, of Alabama, was a 
type, complained because they had to pay fifteen hundred 
dollars each for slaves in Virginia, when they could get them 
in Cuba for six hundred and on the coast of Guinea for one 
hundred. The prohts of the business had become so enor- 
mous and public opinion was so complaisant toward infrac- 
tions of the law, that slaves were brought from Africa to 
Cuba and even to southern ports of the United States in 
large numbers, New York being the principal port where 
these slave-traders were fitted out, just as Newport had been 



DOMESTIC TRADE IN SLAVES 171 

the centre of the African slave trade for New England before 
the Revolutionary War. 

Down to 1845 the best market in the South for slaves was 
in the cotton-growing uplands of Alabama, Mississippi and 
Louisiana. After the admission of Texas into the federal 
Union in 1845 that state offered the best market. Under 
this stimulus the value of the domestic trade in slaves 
between the border states and the cotton-growing states 
developed with great rapidity. In the decade from 1850 to 
i860 about two hundred thousand slaves are estimated to 
have been shipped from the border states to the Far South. 
At the lowest computation of an average price of five hun- 
dred dollars each, the value of this traffic for this period 
must have been at least a hundred millions of dollars, and 
probably amounted to much more than that sum. In 
his Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America Henry 
Wilson, of Massachusetts, representing of course the ex- 
treme northern view of the matter, says it was estimated 
that at the close of this decade the domestic slave trade 
had grown to the sale of thirty thousand slaves a year at a 
market value of some thirty million dollars. 

The South being an agricultural region exclusively, and 
practically the entire revenue of southern planters being 
derived from the cultivation of cotton, rice, indigo and to- 
bacco, for which negroes alone were serviceable, the labor 
of slaves and the trade in slaves constituted the economic 
foundation on which the life of the people, social, political 
and industrial, rested. So great indeed was the financial 
interest of the South in slavery that it was as natural as 
it was inevitable for the southern leaders of public opinion 
to defend the institution against all attacks and to seek in 



172 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

every way to perpetuate it. There was no possible alterna- 
tive open to them. And it was only a short step from this 
attitude to the position that slavery in itself was morally as 
well as legally right, and must be protected at whatever cost. 

Throughout the southern states the slave-owners formed 
a ruling caste. Social standing and poHtical preferment 
were goals to be reached by ambitious young men mainlv 
through the ownership of slaves. Yet the number of slave- 
owners, even as late as the outbreak of the Civil War, was 
relatively small. Not more than one white family in five 
throughout the slave states in i860 had a property interest 
in slaves. And of the total of three hundred and fifty 
thousand slave-owning families at this date fully seventy- 
seven thousand possessed only one slave apiece, while as 
many as two hundred thousand others owned fewer than 
ten slaves each. The number of families owning as many 
as a hundred slaves each was only twenty-three hundred in 
the entire South. It is probably safe to say that ten thou- 
sand slave-holding families constituted the ruling power in 
the social, political and industrial life of the South in i860. 
And this masterful control was exercised over a total i)opu- 
lation of about twelve and a quarter millions of people, only 
a little less than a third of whom were slaves and two and 
a half millions of whom were poor whites. 

So long as the South retained a commanding influence in 
the direction of the affairs of the federal government, the 
vast property interests thus represented by slavery were 
thought to be in safe hands. When, however, through 
immigration and greater industrial energy, the free states 
began to surpass the slave states in population and in 
wealth, and when, as a consequence, this control began to 



RISE OF THE ABOLITIONISTS 173 

be threatened, the necessity became apparent to the leaders 
in the South of increasing the number of slave states and in 
this way of securing additional representation in both houses 
of Congress. 

These economic and political motives, which became 
more and more powerful in later years, were in operation, 
moreover, as early as 1820 to induce the South to advocate 
the admission to the federal Union as a slave state of Mis- 
souri, then having a population of fifty-six thousand freemen 
and ten thousand slaves, three-fifths of whom, it should be 
remembered, counted in the enumeration which served as 
the basis for representation in the lower house of Congress. 
With this accession of slave territory the South was satis- 
fied for the time being that its interests both poKtical and 
material were being properly safeguarded. As a concession 
to the northern opponents of the further extension of sla- 
very the act provided that thereafter slavery should be pro- 
hibited in the Louisiana purchase north of the 36° 30' par- 
allel of latitude, the southern boundary of the new state. 
These were the terms of the famous Missouri Compromise, 
the adoption of which brought to an end the first act in the 
great drama of slavery. 

With the passage of the Missouri Compromise the ques- 
tion of slavery was generally thought to have been settled 
permanently on a mutually satisfactory basis. In 1831, 
however, the Liberator made its appearance in Boston, and 
the abolitionists, under Garrison's uncompromising and 
aggressive leadership, began publicly to denounce slavery 
as a crime and as a disgrace to the nation, and to hold up 
to the scorn and contempt of the world not only the slave- 
owners and slave-dealers of the South, but the apologists 



174 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

for slavery, of whom there were very many, in the North. 
The violent, vituperative, even vindictive spirit in which 
the abolitionists from the very start carried on their anti- 
slavery crusade made emancipation or any other peaceable 
solution of the question impossible thenceforth. In the 
North men as a rule had little time or disposition at this 
period to consider the moral aspects of slavery; they were 
too busy laying out towns and cities, making homes for 
themselves, building turnpikes, canals and railroads, and 
establishing great industries. They, therefore, as well as 
the men of the South, resented the continual agitation of 
this troublesome question by Garrison and his fellow-abo- 
litionists whom they regarded for years as noisy, meddle- 
some fanatics, disturbers of the peace and fomenters of 
discord. The anti-abolition riots which occurred in numer- 
ous cities of the North expressed this sentiment in violent 
form, but with the usual effect of helping ultimately the 
cause of the agitators. 

In the South the attacks of the abolitionists were re- 
ceived at first with amazement, then with indignation, and 
finally, when it came to be believed that the purpose of the 
agitation was to excite a servile uprising, with alarm and 
anger. No other results could reasonably have been antici- 
pated from an intelligent, self-respecting, law-abiding peo- 
ple thus assailed. And as, with the passage of years, public 
opinion, from this and other causes to be referred to later, 
began to gain ground in the North that slavery was im- 
moral and should be abolished, if a way could be found 
to this end, or at least checked in its spread, the bit- 
terness of feeling in the South naturally grew greater 
and greater and expressed itself more and more freely. 



SOUTHERN DOMINATION THREATENED 175 

Thus the breach between the two sections constantly 
grew wider. 

As the free states continued to outstrip the slave states 
in population and industrial wealth, the danger threaten- 
ing to undermine southern domination in the federal gov- 
ernment and thus to imperil the institution of slavery be- 
came more and more acute. The magnitude of the issues 
involved in slavery and in the allied southern doctrine of 
state sovereignty brought new leaders into the arena, two 
of whom stood head and shoulders above their fellows — ■ 
Calhoun, of South Carolina, in advocacy of, and Webster, 
of Massachusetts, in opposition to, the extension of 
slavery. Calhoun and his associates sought to avert this 
impending danger in various ways: by securing the 
admission of Texas as a slave state in 1845, being thwarted, 
however, in their plan to carve three or four new slave states 
from the enormous territory thus acquired; by forcing the 
government, a year later, into war with Mexico, in the 
hope and expectation that other slave states might be 
created from the territory which Mexico would be com- 
pelled to cede as the price of peace — a hope that was never 
realized; and, finally, by securing the passage in 1850 of 
the Fugitive Slave law. As an offset to this last-named 
concession to the South, California was admitted to the 
federal Union as a free state, such being the wishes of her 
people, and the trade in slaves, but not slavery itself, was 
prohibited in the District of Columbia. Such were the 
main provisions of Clay's Compromise of 1850, of which 
Calhoun, however, then nearing his end, was the real author. 

Each of these measures which Congress passed between 
1820 and 1850 was designed to give greater security to the 



176 ■ SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

slave power in the nation than it had possessed before, and 
each of them attained this object. No one of them could 
have been passed by the votes of the slave states alone; 
the assistance of northern sympathizers was always neces- 
sary and was always forthcoming. Administration after 
administration, even when the President came from a free 
state, as was the case with Pierce and Buchanan, was so 
under the dominating influence of the South that north- 
ern votes for the advancement of its projects were secured 
without difl^culty. 

The turning-point in the history of slavery in the United 
States was reached with the passage in 1854 of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act. The author and successful advocate of 
this measure, Senator Douglas, of Illinois, a Democrat of 
character and abihty, thought that in "squatter sover- 
eignty" he had found a political principle which would 
solve the slavery problem satisfactorily to both northern 
Democrats and southern slave-holders, and which might, 
as a consequence, secure for him the Democratic nomina- 
tion for the PresicTency. In accordance with this prin- 
ciple the people of a territory were to be allowed to decide 
for themselves whether slavery or freedom should prevail 
within its borders. With the application of this principle 
to the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was involved 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which for thirty- 
four years, it will be remembered, had checked the north- 
ern progress of slavery at the 36° 30' parallel of latitude. 
Thus the enormous area of territory now included in the 
states of Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana, a part 
of Colorado and Wyoming, was again thrown into the 
political arena as a prize for fierce and bitter contention 



KANSAS A BATTLE-GROUND 177 

between the advocates and opponents of the extension of 
slavery. 

The South immediately saw in the situation which the 
ingenuity and ambition of Douglas had created an oppor- 
tunity to make Kansas, the territorial boundaries of which 
then extended to the Rocky Mountains, a slave state. 
Kansas therefore soon became literally a battle-ground 
between the contending forces — the pro-slavery men, on 
the one hand, called by the anti-slavery party, from their 
motley appearance and their high-handed acts, "border 
rufhans, " who came from the adjoining slave state of Mis- 
souri, and, on the other, the emigrants who poured into 
the territory from the North, mainly from New England, 
who, with almost a fanatical hatred of slavery, were equally 
determined to make Kansas a free state by their very 
numbers. 

These emigrants were the expression of a great change 
which had taken place in northern sentiment in the decade 
between the admission of Texas into the federal Union and 
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The abolition- 
ists, against whom at the outset of their agitation, as has 
been pointed out, every one's hand had been turned, were 
in part responsible for this change, although their influence 
later became less and less, the vagaries of their leaders 
carrying them finally to the point of looking upon secession 
with complacency and of burning pubhcly the Constitution 
of the United States. Other influences had also been at 
work. The conviction that the war with Mexico was un- 
justly begun and was inspired by the slave power, finding 
lasting expression, as has already been noted, through 
Lowell in The Biglow Papers, had become wide-spread. 



178 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

Mrs. Stowe's appealing story of Uncle Tom's Cabin had 
produced a profound impression throughout the North, 
especially among those readers whose sympathies were 
easily moved, notwithstanding the vehement protests of 
the South that the picture was overcolored, false and mis- 
leading. The operation of the Fugitive Slave law, which 
formed one of the main themes of Mrs. Stowe's novel, was 
a thorn in the side of the North causing constant irritation. 
The feeling, under all these influences, had gained ground 
steadily and had at last become deep-seated that slavery 
in itself was a great wrong and that its further spread must 
be stopped. If, as seemed to be the case, the slave states 
were anxious to make a test of the matter in Kansas, the 
North was ready to accept the challenge. 

The simplicity of the issue thus presented, combined 
with the changed temper of the North, had the immediate 
effect of bringing order out of the confusion into which the 
slavery question had brought the Free-soil, Whig and 
American or Knownothing parties in the free states. The 
victories which the new anti-Nebraska party won were the 
prelude only to the organization of the Republican party, 
with its cardinal doctrine of opposition to the furtJier ex- 
tension of slavery. Although the Republicans failed in 
1856 to elect their first candidate for the Presidency, John 
C. Fremont, they went on perfecting their organization in 
the free states and faced the slave power in Congress with 
a more resolute and a more confident spirit than had ever 
before been displayed. New men came forward to take the 
places of the old leaders — Seward, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, 
Hale, with many others — men who embodied this new 
spirit and who refused longer to yield to the arrogant die- 



i8o SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

tation of the slave-owners, of whom, in Pierce's admin- 
istration, Jefferson Davis was looked upon as the most 
arrogant and the most dictatorial. 

Not a few events, all of which possessed a dramatic and 
some of which even a tragic character, occurred during 
these momentous years which had the effect of fostering 
anti-slavery sentiment and of building up and solidifying 
the new Republican party: further outrages in Kansas, 
illustrating the desperate lengths to which its rule-or-ruin 
policy was carrying the pro-slavery party of Missouri; 
the brutal assault by Brooks upon Sumner, in the Senate 
Chamber in May, 1856; the decision of the Supreme Court 
of the United States in the Dred Scott case in 1857; the 
joint debates between the hitherto unknown Illinois law- 
yer, Abraham Lincoln, and Judge Douglas, the author of the 
Kansas-Nebraska act and the leader of the northern wing 
of the Democratic party; and, fmally, the foolhardy raid, in 
October, 1859, of John Brown and his handful of followers 
upon Harper's Ferry, for the purpose of freeing slaves. 

The details of these events were received in the North 
with breathless interest and provoked wide discussion. 
The stories of the crimes perpetrated by the '' border 
ruffians" against life and property as well as' against 
the ballot in Kansas aroused amazement and indig- 
nation when told to northern audiences. The savage 
assault upon the senator from Massachusetts was accepted 
as a notitication that the slave power, driven at last to the 
wall, was prepared to resort to physical violence in order 
to beat down all opposition to its imperious will. In the 
cold light of history the assault is found to have grown 
directly out of the language, unjustifiably intemperate and 



INSPIRATION OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID i8i 

even personally offensive, which Sumner a day or two pre- 
viously had applied in the course of a speech to a fellow- 
senator, Butler, of South Carolina, a relative of Brooks. 
The free states, moreover, refused to accept the Dred Scott 
decision as the law of the land. This decision, which had 
given great joy to the South, denied citizenship to a slave 
transferred to a free territory, and confirmed his master's 
ownership in him as property, while incidentally declaring 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be void, on the ground 
that Congress possessed no power to prohibit slavery in 
any territory. 

This decision of the Supreme Court confirming the 
soundness of the position which the South had maintained 
for years with reference both to the status of slavery in 
the territories and to the obligation of Congress to pro- 
tect slavery therein, came too late, however, in the con- 
troversy to exert more than an academic influence. The 
time had arrived when action was to take the place of 
further contentious discussion. John Brown embodied this 
feeling. His raid not unnaturally threw the South into a 
panic of fear lest it might be the signal for a general servile 
uprising. The South held the "Black Repubhcans " equally 
responsible with the abolitionists for the tragic conse- 
quences of that ill-fated expedition. The evidence failed, 
however, to show that Brown, as grim and fanatical a 
Puritan as ever followed Cromwell, had had any associa- 
tion with the Republican leaders. Wearied with the inter- 
minable talk of his aboHtionist friends about the evils of 
slavery, he had decided that then was the accepted time 
for him to serve as the instrument of the divine will in 
doing what they had long preached ought to be done. 



1 82 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

The Lincoln-Douglas debates, with the Kansas-Nebraska 
act and slavery in general as the theme, were of national 
scope and interest, although they bore directly on the 
local contests in Illinois for the United States Senatorship. 
For they had a decisive effect upon the careers of both 
men and upon the parties of which they were the repre- 
sentative leaders. It was in these debates that Lincoln 
revealed himself as a deep thinker and a close, powerful 
reasoner, who reached fundamental truths slowly, clung 
to them tenaciously, and expressed them with simpHcity, 
clearness and force. It was also through these debates 
that Judge Douglas, more brilHant intellectually and more 
adroit as a politician at this stage of his career than Lin- 
coln, was nevertheless forced, in order to placate some of 
his northern followers, into the adoption of a variation of 
his "squatter sovereignty" idea as a device for evading in 
the territories the full force of the Dred Scott decision. 
From that moment Douglas was marked for destruction 
by the slave-owners, who accused him of double-dealing 
and of betraying their interests, and who split the Demo- 
cratic party in the Charleston Convention in i860 rather 
than follow his leadership further. On the other hand, the 
prominence which these joint debates gave Lincoln was 
one of the chief influences leading to his nomination for the 
Presidency in the Chicago Convention in the same year, 
after it had been made clear that Seward could not win 
the prize. 

The election of Lincoln made secession inevitable. The 
action of the seven slave states. South Carohna, Mississippi, 
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, in with- 
drawing from the federal Union, one after the other, as soon 



LOGIC OF THE SOUTHERN VIEW 183 

as his election as President became an assured fact, was 
perfectly consistent with their records and with their view 
of what the future had in store for them. To the southern 
leaders of that day, Davis, Toombs, Stephens and Benja- 
min among others, the supremacy of the Republican party 
meant that sooner or later the attempt would be made to 
uproot and destroy slavery. Lincoln himself had publicly 
declared it to be his belief that the government could not 
endure permanently half slave and half free. Was it not 
perfectly logical to suppose that Lincoln and his "Black 
RepubHcan" followers, now that they were in power, would 
seek by some means to destroy this monstrous evil, als they 
regarded it, and to make the nation all free? 

To the extremists of the South there seemed to be only 
one feasible solution of the difficult problem — secession. 
Several of the border states, however, notably Virginia, 
left the Union with great reluctance and only after it be- 
came apparent that the federal government intended to 
resort to armed force in order, if possible, to bring the seced- 
ing states back into the Union. A quarter of a century 
earlier Calhoun, more skilful in forecasting the future than 
he was in providing remedies with which to avert its perils, 
had announced with characteristic southern boldness that 
the institution of slavery was vitally necessary not only to 
the welfare but to the very existence of southern civiliza- 
tion, and that if the South ever had to make a choice be- 
tween slavery and the Union it would unhesitatingly give 
up the Union. The time seemed to have arrived when 
this choice must be made, and Calhoun, by his elaboration, 
exposition and justification of the doctrine of state sov- 
ereignty, had given the South a serviceable instrument 



1 84 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

with which to meet just such a crisis. This doctrine em- 
powering a sovereign state to secede from the federal Union 
whenever what it conceived to be its rights under the Con- 
stitution were infringed or even threatened had been im- 
planted by Calhoun so deeply and securely in the southern 
mind that it had become a poKtical axiom, notwithstand- 
ing Webster's argument upholding the supreme authority 
of the federal power under the compact entered into by the 
"people of the United States." In resorting, by with- 
drawal from the federal Union, to this doctrine of state 
sovereignty and in organizing the Confederate States of 
America, with Jefferson Davis as President and Alexander 
H. Stephens as Vice-President, South Carolina and her 
sister commonwealths were thus exercising what they hon- 
estly believed to be their Constitutional rights, in order to 
provide a government under which slavery might be secure 
from molestation. 

Even under these critical conditions, however, the lead- 
ers in the seceding states did not expect war to follow. 
The opinion was general among them that the free states 
would not resort to armed coercion. The expectation was 
equally wide-spread that, as had always heretofore been 
the case, some compromise would in time be arranged by 
which slavery might again be saved to the South. To this 
end commissioners were sent to Washington, at first from 
South CaroHna and later from the new Confederate govern- 
ment itself, to discuss terms upon which these independent 
"nations" might continue to live in peace and harmony 
with each other. 

Despite the abject failure of these missions some of the 
more fiery spirits in the South continued to doubt if the 



LINCOLN'S STATESMANSHIP 185 

North could even be forced to fight. The attitude, more- 
over, of a large and influential portion of the leaders in the 
free states gave some ground for this contemptuous opin- 
ion. For hesitation, vacillation and timidity marked the 
conduct of many of the men who had been most conspicu- 
ous as molders of public opinion in the North — Greeley 
and Phillips among the number — not a few of whom seemed 
panic-stricken at the prospect of facing the legitimate con- 
sequences of their own teachings, and who were more than 
willing to allow the South to go her own way in peace rather 
than to accept the alternative of civil war. In the sharp- 
est possible contrast, on the other hand, to this state of 
demoralization were the qualities which at the outset the 
southern leaders brought to the colossal task which they 
had set themselves to perform — singleness and definiteness 
of purpose, intelligent and effective co-operation, unlimited 
self-confidence, and a determination to make every sacrifice 
in order to achieve the end they had in view. 

There was one man, however, who, amid all the turmoil 
of conflicting opinions that prevailed in the North during 
the interregnum under the bewildered Buchanan, remained 
at his home in Illinois, calm, serious, unperturbed by the 
clamor around him, watching events closely, studying pub- 
lic opinion, and working his way, laboriously but surely, as 
was his wont, to immutable conclusions founded not only 
upon the highest justice but upon a knowledge of human 
nature which was the fruit of years of contact with his 
fellow-men. As a result of these reflections Lincoln finally 
decided to thrust slavery into the background and to make 
the preservation of the Union the commanding issue before 
the country. This he did in his inaugural address; and at 



1 86 SLAVERY AND SECESSION 

no stage of his career did he show greater quahties of 
statesmanship, in the highest sense of the word, than in 
Hfting the contest thus early to the lofty plane of national 
patriotism and in appealing at the outset to the universal 
passion throughout the North for an undivided country. 
By this master-stroke of statesmanship he saved several of 
the doubtful border states for the Union and lighted in the 
free states a flame of patriotic ardor which, fanned into a 
blaze a few weeks later by the news from Sumter, spread 
thenceforth with marvellous rapidity and acquired an over- 
whelming force. 



XVI 
CIVIL WAR 

From first to last the dominating figure in the Civil War 
on the side of the North was that of Lincoln. The duty of 
guiding the nation safely through the momentous crisis in 
which it found itself had been entrusted to him by the 
people, and he took up the task with a masterful self- 
rehance which annoyed, irritated and finally angered not 
only his avowed enemies, but the leaders of his own party, 
who should have been his steadfast supporters. After the 
lapse of half a century no one can read the full story of 
those eventful four years without a feeling of wonder and 
amazement that Lincoln accomphshed what he did in the 
face of the criticism, fault-finding, envy and malice to 
which he was subjected. What sustained him through this 
ordeal was his conviction that he knew the minds and hearts 
of the people of the North better than the poHticians and 
editors did, and his faith that his course in each emergency 
as it presented itself would, sooner or later, win the ap- 
proval of their common-sense and of their moral sense. 
The results showed that his conviction was sound and his 
faith justified. 

The attack upon Sumter in April, 1861, found the gov- 
ernment utterly unprepared for war. During the inter- 
regnum following the national election, Buchanan had shut 
his eyes resolutely against the acts of the southern leaders 
in his own cabinet, in Congress and throughout the South 

187 



1 88 CIVIL WAR 

where federal forts and arsenals were situated, and had 
closed his ears just as resolutely against the repeated warn- 
ings from men of judgment and authority that unless 
immediate steps were taken to protect the government's 
property it would all fall into the hands of the secession- 
ists. Confused and appalled by the unexpected and omi- 
nous turn which affairs were taking, Buchanan was weakly 
content merely to mark time, his sole desire apparently 
being to preserve the peace until the newly-elected Presi- 
dent could assume the reins of power. He succeeded in 
this object. To his pusillanimity in this emergency, how- 
ever, was largely due the behef which became wide-spread 
in the South at this time that Northerners were cowardly 
at heart and that the government itself was devoid of self- 
respect. 

In the first two years of the war the Union forces in the 
East were out-manoeuvred and out-fought at almost every 
point by the Confederates. Even with superior numbers 
McClellan, Pope, Burnside and Hooker were no match in 
strategy for Joseph E. Johnston, Lee, Jackson and Stuart, 
operating often, but by no means always, defensively on 
inside lines in territory with which they were more or less 
familiar. The greater mobihty of the Confederate troops, 
especially when they were led by Jackson, enabled Lee 
more than once to play upon the fears of the Washington 
administration and of the politicians for the safety of the 
capital, and in this way to prevent the concentration of the 
Union forces under McClellan, whose plans were seriously 
interfered with in consequence. On the side of the North 
the j)eri()d was one of experiment after experiment by the 
President in the search for a commander who could win 



McCLELLAN AS A COMMANDER 189 

victories and follow them up with crushing force. Mc- 
Clellan, yielding to his fatal habit of resting, recruiting and 
reorganizing his army after a battle, was finally displaced 
permanently when he failed, after Antietam, to overwhelm 
or, at least, seriously to cripple Lee before he could recross 
the Potomac into Virginia. Pope had already been badly 
beaten at the second battle of Bull Run, and the terrible 
disasters later of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville 
proved conclusively the unfitness of Burnside and Hooker, 
respectively, for the command of the Army of the Po- 
tomac. 

Military and civilian critics of the war will never agree 
as to what McClellan might or might not have accomplished 
with the splendid army which he had organized, if he had 
not been interfered with constantly by the President as 
well as by the politicians big and httle in Washington. It 
was doubtless his misfortune that the scene of his military 
operations was so near the seat of government. He pos- 
sessed a genius for organization and was beloved by his 
soldiers, for whose welfare and comfort he had almost too 
much concern. The final judgment will probably be that 
he lacked the moral quahties of a great commander — 
initiative, energy, versatility and an appreciation of the 
importance of the poKtical as well as the purely military 
aspects of a situation. His horizon was circumscribed 
within narrow and purely military limits. The state of 
the roads in his immediate front and of his commissariat 
gave him constant concern. The state of public opinion 
in the North, which might make a vigorous forward move- 
ment on his part imperative, whatever the risk, did not 
appear to affect him in the slightest degree. It was, no 



igo CIVIL WAR 

doubt, the discovery of these radical defects in McClellan's 
character as a soldier which led Lincoln to distrust him 
finally and to refuse to give him the free hand which he 
later gave to Grant without hesitation. 

In the West very different conditions from those in the 
East prevailed. The -scene of operations at the outset in 
Tennessee was a suflfii:i-tnt' distance from Washington to 
make interference from Uiat c^uarter comparatively difficult 
and infrequent; general- instructions had to suffice. The 
Union commanders wer^ thus thrown more largely upon 
their own resources. THey were men, moreover, of a dif- 
ferent type from the^j^^'neral officers in the East, more 
aggressive and more tenacious in holding whatever ground 
they won. They possessed also latent self-reliance and 
power of initiative, quahties which were developed by 
the very conditions under which they fought. Grant's 
peremptory demand for the unconditional surrender of 
Fort Donelson, in February, 1862, gave the key to his 
forcible, aggressive character as a military leader. His 
pugnacious tenacity was revealed a few weeks later in 
the repulse of General A. S. Johnston's fierce attack upon 
the Union forces at Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh, a bloody 
and stubbornly fought battle which was turned into a Union 
victory by the timely arrival of Buell, and which involved 
a serious loss to the Confederacy in the death of General 
Johnston, one of its ablest officers. 

When early in 1864 Congress placed Grant in command 
of all the Union armies his name had become synonymous 
with victory. The news of his capture of Vicksburg, in- 
cluding Pemberton's army of thirty-one thousand men, 
after a siege, which had been preceded by a sharp but effec- 



192 CR'IL WAR 

tive campaign against Joseph E. Johnston in order to drive 
him away from the neighborhood, reached the North in 
1863 simultaneously with the details of the Union victory 
at Gettysburg, in which Meade, Hooker's successor in 
command of the Army of the Potomac, had defeated Lee 
and had put an end to his audacious invasion of Penn- 
sylvania. The naval expedition of Farragut and Porter 
having by a bold stroke, a year earlier, destroyed the Con- 
federate batteries and ships below New Orleans, the Mis- 
sissippi, when Vicksburg surrendered to Grant and Port 
Hudson consequently capitulated to Banks, came under the 
control of the Union forces throughout its length. The 
South was thus divided, and thenceforth the Confederate 
government was deprived of the rich territory to the west 
of the river' as a source of supplies in men and food. Grant's 
Chattanooga campaign, in the autumn of the same year, 
in which he had the assistance of Sherman, Thomas, Sheri- 
dan and Hooker, and which culminated in the storming 
of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, went far to 
confirm the impression which his career up to that time had 
created that he possessed military ability of a high order. 
He revealed, in the words of the Comte de Paris in treating 
of this campaign, a mind "powerful to conceive, firm to 
execute and fertile in resources at the critical time. " Vicks- 
burg and Chattanooga, therefore, not to include Shiloh and 
Donelson, made the selection of Grant as the leader of the 
Union forces inevitable. Here at last, thought the Presi- 
dent, is the man to meet and defeat Lee — a man who fights 
and holds his ground and keeps on fighting until he has 
gained his end. 

Meanwhile some other aspects of the great conflict re- 



ATTITUDE OF ENGLAND 193 

quire consideration. During the first two years of the war 
the menace of English or French intervention in behalf of 
the South gave great concern to the administration of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. The Confederate government was confident 
from the outset that the cotton of the South was so neces- 
sary to the prosperity and even to the continued existence 
of the English mills that Great Britain would be compelled 
before long to interfere in its behalf — perhaps even to em- 
ploy force in order to raise the blockade which the vessels 
of the Union navy had made effective at almost every 
point along the southern coast. This confidence, however, 
proved to be misplaced. 

As a whole the English aristocracy and the middle classes 
were hostile to the North, and made no concealment of the 
satisfaction they would feel if the Confederacy carried out 
its design to break the great republic in two. This feel- 
ing was first revealed early in the war when the two Con- 
federate envoys, Mason and Slidell, were forcibly taken 
from the British mail steamship Trent by an American naval 
ofiicer and conveyed to Boston. In returning the envoys 
to the shelter of an English war-vessel Mr. Seward, Presi- 
dent Lincoln's Secretary of State, adroitly pointed out that 
the United States had fought the War of 181 2 in defense of 
the very principle which Great Britain had now applied 
to the case of the Trent. The act of the American naval 
officer, being thus inconsistent with the invariable poHcy 
of the United States government with reference to im- 
pressment, was therefore disowned. War with England, 
with results that can scarcely be imagined, was thus nar- 
rowly averted. The arrogant and peremptory manner in 
which England enforced immediate compliance with its 



194 CIVIL WAR 

demands left, however, a rankling wound in the breasts of 
many men in the North. 

The British workingmen, on the other hand, perhaps 
with a truer instinct for the moral issue invoh'ed in slavery 
as the real cause of the war, sympathized as a rule with the 
North, notwithstanding the suffering they were enduring 
from the effects of the blockade of the southern ports. The 
influence of the President's proclamation, issued as a war 
measure, emancipating the slaves after January i, 1863, 
was immediately felt in England. In the light of emanci- 
pation the purpose of the North in the war was no longer 
solely the preservation of the Union, but included as well 
the extinction of slavery. After this declaration English 
intervention in any form in behalf of the Confederacy 
would have been in effect an effort to protect and perpetuate 
slavery, and English public opinion, it was soon discovered, 
would not sustain the government in any course which 
might lead to such a result. 

It was fortunate that through all these anxious years the 
United States government had as minister at the Court of 
St. James a man of the character of Charles Francis Adams, 
whose courage, firmness, self-control and family pride 
equipped him admirably to meet the cold indifference or 
open hostility of the English officials with whom he had 
to deal. It was largely through his intelligeijt and untiring 
efforts, moreover, that the schemes of Napoleon III for the 
joint recognition by England and France of the Confed- 
eracy as an independent nation were frustrated. Many 
years later the British government was compelled to pay 
the United States fifteen and a half million dollars, under 
the award of the Geneva tribunal, before which the abundant 



ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE UNION NAVY 195 

and conclusive evidence collected by Mr. Adams was laid, as 
compensation for the negligence amounting to connivance 
which allowed the Alabama and other Confederate privateers 
to escape from British ports, fully armed and manned, to 
carry destruction to American shipping all over the world. 
It was impracticable early in the war for the North even 
to attempt to check the ravages of these Anglo-Confederate 
commerce destroyers. The all-important estabhshment and 
maintenance of the blockade along a coast line of three 
thousand miles, together with service on the inland waters 
of the Mississippi and its great tributaries, in conjunction 
with the operations of the land forces, monopolized the 
entire energies of the Union navy. During this period and 
later, however, several noteworthy achievements of the 
Union naval forces, standing out with distinctness from 
the monotonous duty of blockade service, possessed unusual 
significance. The fight between the Monitor and the Mer- 
rimac, inconclusive in itself but of the highest importance 
in ending the devastating career of the first iron-clad ram 
ever built for use in war, revolutionized naval construction 
in a day, bringing to a close the romantic era in which the 
Bonhomme Richard, the Victory and the Constitution had 
played their heroic parts, and ushering in the period in 
which the formidable steel battle-ships of the present time 
were to develop. The capture of New Orleans in April, 
1862, by the naval expedition under Farragut and Porter, 
brought the Mississippi as far north as Vicksburg under the 
control of the Union forces, simplified greatly the problem 
which the siege of Vicksburg presented to Grant a year 
later, and suppHed the United States minister to England 
with his first really weighty argument against the recogni- 



196 CIVIL WAR 

tion of the Confederacy. Farragut's highest achievement, 
however, was the victory of his fleet in the battle of Mobile 
Bay in August, 1864, a victory which closed to blockade 
runners the last port of importance save Wilmington, N. C, 
which the Confederates had kept open. Less than two 
months earher the Kearsarge in sinking the Alabama off 
Cherbourg had presented to Englishmen, under their very 
eyes, so to speak, an argument in favor of the North of a 
kind which they could appreciate. 

The summer and early autumn of 1864 were a critical 
period. Despite the discontent of the radicals and the dis- 
trust of the leaders even of his own party, and in the face of 
the tearful protests of the emotional "peace RepubHcans" 
of the Greeley type, who were overcome by the sacrifice 
of thousands of precious lives in the campaigns in which 
Grant in Virginia and Sherman in Georgia were at last 
co-operating to a common end, Lincoln, early in June, had 
been overwhelmingly renominated for the Presidency on 
the first ballot. Here was further proof, if any were needed, 
of how much better Lincoln's character and aims were 
understood by the mass of the RepubUcan party than by 
the Washington politicians and the New York editors. 
His moral courage, moreover, was equal to the duty, even 
under the threatening conditions which, in the lack of de- 
cisive victories for the Union forces, overhung his prospects 
for re-election, of issuing a call for half a million more 
men to fill the depleted ranks of Grant's and Sherman's 
battalions, well knowing that the conscription would have 
again to be resorted to in order to meet this demand, and 
with the recollection of the draft riots in New York the 
previous summer still fresh in his mind. 



e?5 'TKfVt fLin-^, 0,nltoW. 'Ac-W. 

S/t^r\Myrc>-t' of rh.<^^&A<„c-'fCiA,,6JL^:^ yt>fl,<tX> ■y<>^ «/>*' Xt-^ ^*i.0^t>^JUL- 0< 
/nJv*\^ UfhUyC^ jt'Kir''-^^ 0-^:tut,yA^ Xo -^^^.o^Uyi^i^ AfO\^ ^ya-y^ -C^i- 

FAC-SIMILE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY, 
OF BOSTON. 



198 CIVIL WAR 

The news of three Union victories, however, came op- 
portunely to make Lincoln's re-election certain by refuting 
emphatically the contention in the Democratic platform 
on which McClellan was nominated, in August, but which 
he repudiated, that the war was a failure. For it was 
early in the same month that Farragut destroyed the Con- 
federate forts and war- vessels in Mobile Bay. A few weeks 
later Sherman, having forced Johnston steadily back from 
Dalton, defeated Hood, whom President Davis had put in 
Johnston's place, in a fierce battle before Atlanta and capt- 
ured the city. And at about the same time Sheridan, in 
several spirited engagements, destroyed Early's force in the 
Shenandoah Valley, relieving Washington thenceforth from 
all danger of an attack from that quarter. Grant, mean- 
while, had forced Lee back, slowly but with the sureness of 
implacable fate, by constantly turning his right flank, to 
the defenses to the east and southeast of Richmond, where 
he held him in a vice-like grip. The bloody battle-fields of 
the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, on which 
tens of thousands of lives were lost, attested both the ag- 
gressive fierceness with which this onward movement was 
made by Grant and the stubborn valor with which every 
foot of the way was contested by the Confederates under 
Lee. 

At last victory for the Union forces was in the air, and 
the Republican campaign emphasized at once the deter- 
mination of the Republicans as a party to carry the war 
through to the end and the hopeful feeling that at last 
the end was in sight. The Republicans secured two hun- 
dred and twelve presidential electors, the Democrats, only 
twenty-one. The popular vote, however, of 2,330,552 



COLLAPSE OF THE CONFEDERACY 199 

Republicans to 1,835,985 Democrats, shows more clearly 
than the electoral vote the relative strength of the two 
parties. Handicapped though he was by the Democratic 
platform, with its peace plank and its declaration that the 
war was a failure, McClellan, running on his war record, 
polled not far from two million votes. By the adoption 
early in 1865 of the thirteenth amendment to the Consti- 
tution the Republicans in Congress made evident to the 
world their further determination, as one of the purposes 
of the war, to destroy slavery throughout the United States 
and to make its revival in any form or at any time impos- 
sible. 

The collapse of the Confederacy was due to exhaustion 
through starvation — starvation in men and in money, as 
well as in food, clothing and all the other supplies neces- 
sary to support a people and to carry on war. Beginning 
the battle of the Wilderness on May 5, 1864, with sixty-one 
thousand men, Lee surrendered fewer than twenty-seven 
thousand at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. 
By casualties, captures and desertions he had lost more than 
half of his army. In the ten days preceding the surrender 
no fewer than nineteen thousand Confederate soldiers had 
been captured by Grant's forces. It is no reflection on the 
loyalty of these men to surmise that not a few of them were 
willing captives, for it was not in human nature to expect 
that men would longer risk their lives for a cause which, it 
was perfectly evident, was irretrievably lost. 

The South, moreover, was bankrupt in money and sup- 
plies as well as in men. Only small returns were secured 
from Confederate bonds sold abroad, and the purchasing 
power of the paper currency issued from time to time by Mr. 



200 CIVIL WAR 

Davis's government grew steadily less and less until, in the 
spring of 1864, a coat cost three hundred and fifty dollars in 
Richmond, a pair of shoes one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars, a bushel of potatoes twenty-five dollars, and a 
pound of butter fifteen dollars. Hundreds of thousands 
of bales of cotton were locked up and made worthless by 
the Union blockade ; English intervention, upon which the 
South so confidently relied, had proved to be a delusion; 
no material or effective help had come to the Confederates 
from their sympathizers among the copperheads of the 
North. An agricultural people, almost entirely without 
manufactures, eight million in numbers, owning nearly four 
million slaves, had exhausted their resources and them- 
selves fighting a manufacturing and agricultural people 
numbering nineteen millions, so rich that they could supply 
the federal government with more than two million dollars 
a day for four years with which to prosecute the war. 

Thus weakened, the Confederacy was crushed between 
Grant's tenacious aggressiveness in pursuing Lee, and Sher- 
man's energy in breaking the back, so to speak, of the South 
at Atlanta, and in sweeping thence, confident and buoyant, 
with his army of sixty thousand veterans through Georgia 
and the Carolinas, where he held Johnston, now restored to 
the command of a hastily-gathered force, at bay until Lee's 
surrender made further resistance useless. In the great 
conflict thus brought to an end the South developed six 
generals who distinguished themselves — Lee, ''Stonewall" 
Jackson, the two Johnstons, Albert Sidney and Joseph E., 
and the two cavalry leaders, Forrest and Stuart, and the 
North five who stood pre-eminent among their fellows- 
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and Thomas; the de- 



202 CIVIL WAR 

feat of Hood by Thomas before Nashville in December. 
1864, having contributed vitally to the success of the cam- 
paign which Grant and Sherman were waging. It was the 
misfortune of the Confederacy to lose three of these great 
captains; Albert Sidney Johnston, early in the war at 
Shiloh, Jackson at Chancellorsville, and Stuart in an en- 
gagement near Richmond, in 1864. They had successors 
but no equals. 

The extent to which President Davis's traits of character 
and idiosyncrasies of temperament contributed to the down- 
fall of the Confederacy can only be conjectured. Auto- 
cratic in temper and tenacious of all of the rights which the 
Confederate constitution bestowed upon him, he kept a 
firm control of all military operations, and indulged his per- 
sonal likes and dislikes in appointments and removals with, 
no doubt, an honest belief that he was acting always in the 
best interest of the government of which he was the head. 
Although he was held mainly responsible by his own people 
for the disasters which, one by one, overwhelmed the Con- 
federacy toward the end of the war, history will probably 
confirm Lee's generous judgment that, on the whole, he did 
as well as any man could have done in the same place. If 
he had had the wisdom or the courage to stake all on a single 
mighty blow — to accept, that is, Lee's daring project for a 
concentration of all the Confederate forces for an over- 
whelming invasion of the North, the whole course of the 
war and the fate of the nation might possibly have been 
changed. To leave the Gulf states thus open to unopposed 
invasion and devastation was a greater responsibility, how- 
ever, than the Confederate President was willing to l)ear. 
He preferred to cherish the delusive hope that English 



RELATIVE NUMBERS AND LOSSES 203 

intervention would come to the aid of the South in its her- 
culean struggle for independence. 

The total cost of the war to the North is wellnigh incal- 
culable. The sum total would include bonds issued from 
time to time by the government and bought by the people 
to the amount of nearly three bilhon dollars, and a large 
percentage also of the eight hundred million dollars re- 
ceived from duties — internal revenue and customs, to say 
nothing of the heavy war debts incurred by states, counties, 
cities and towns. The South was literally impoverished, 
the value of its slave population, estimated roughly at two 
billions of dollars in 1861, being wiped out at a stroke. 

At the end of the war the Union forces numbered not far 
from a million men; those of the Confederacy had dwindled 
to scarcely a fifth of that number. The whole number of 
individuals in service in the Union army and navy during 
the Civil War was estimated in 1905 by the Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's ofi&ce to have been 2,213,365. The estimates of the 
total number in the service of the Confederacy vary from 
600,000 to 1,500,000. A fair consideration, however, of the 
facts given by Thomas L. Livermore in his Numbers and 
Losses in the Civil War in America leads to the belief that 
the total number of enhstments in the Confederate army 
was not far from 1,200,000. From this estimate deduc- 
tions would have to be made for re-enhstments which might 
bring the total number of men who served in the Confed- 
erate army down to 950,000 or perhaps 900,000. Most 
southern writers contend that the actual number was be- 
tween 600,000 and 700,000. These, however, are obviously 
underestimates. For, as Charles Francis Adams in his 
Studies Military and Diplomatic has pointed out, the Con- 



204 CIVIL WAR 

federacy, under any recognized method of computation, 
contained within itself, first and last, some 1,350,000 white 
men capable of doing military duty; and to maintain that 
only about one-half of this possible force was utilized proves 
too much — proves that the South was lacking in loyalty to 
its cause, which is the reverse of the truth. 

This preponderance of men on the side of the North was 
in large part neutralized by the necessity the Union gen- 
erals were under of detaching troops constantly to guard 
long lines of communications and to garrison strategic 
points as they advanced, in ever-contracting circles, into 
the heart of the South, and by the number of men on 
the Union side who were employed in Ijlockade service. 
Mr. Livermore's figures showing the number of men en- 
gaged on each side in the more important battles of the 
war go far to prove that, owing to the large require- 
ments of these allied services, the forces actually engaged 
were much more evenly matched than is generally sup- 
posed to have been the case. Thus in forty-eight of the 
more important battles of the war, beginning with Shiloh 
and ending with the Appomattox campaign, the aggre- 
gate numbers of men engaged were, on the Union side, 
1,575,033, and on the Confederate side, 1,243,528, repre- 
senting approximately a ratio of ilfty-five to forty-five. 
This ratio is maintained also for the relative total numbers 
of men actually engaged in the half-dozen great battles in 
which the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern 
Virginia took part — the Seven Days' battle, Antictam, 
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the Wil- 
derness — the figures being 555,000 men on the Union side 
as against 413,200 on the Confederate side. Mr. Liv- 




SI 

trt J. 



< -^ 

'Z a. 

2 W 

,-, o 



O _ 



2o6 CIVIL WAR 

ermore estimates the total number of killed and wounded 
in the war among the Union men to have been 385,000, 
and among the Confederates 329,000. 

And what were the fruits of the war for which such an 
awful price in blood and treasure had been paid? The 
extinction of the institution of slavery and of the doctrine 
of state sovereignty as causes of anger and strife between 
the North and the South; the estabHshment for all time of 
the federal authority as supreme under the Constitution; 
the revelation of the power of democracy to preserve its 
empire intact; and, finally, the substitution in the South of 
industrial development under freedom for moral lethargy 
and agricultural stagnation under slavery. 

The assassination of President Lincoln, a few days only 
after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, was a tragic cli- 
max to the colossal struggle which had been in progress for 
four years, and brought to an untimely end the career of a 
remarkable man, a genuine son of the soil and the ripest 
product of the moral forces of the democracy of the young 
nation. His mission, as he understood it, was to preserve 
the Union, and, with a singleness of purpose as rare among 
public men as a rule as it was natural to him as an indi- 
vidual, he subordinated all selfish and personal considera- 
tions to the attainment of this great end. To him men were 
nothing except as they could be used to advance the great 
cause which the people had placed in his keeping. Patient 
and self-contained yet resolute and even masterful, he was 
a silent but powerful force that made for righteousness, 
against which the envy and the malice of the ambitious and 
the selfish, as well as the hysteria of the weaklings and the 
panic-stricken, broke impotently. His character and his 



LINCOLN'S CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT 207 

temperament, apparently so simple and yet so tantalizingly 
elusive, will remain for all time a subject of fascinating 
study. And among the imperishable records which he has 
left as a basis for such study none will be found of more 
abiding value as a reflection of his lofty spirit than the 
Gettysburg address, unmatched in American literature for 
nobility of thought and for simplicity and beauty of phrase. 



XVII 
RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

The demoralizing effects of a great civil war upon national 
character were strikingly illustrated during the decade 
following the restoration of peace. Old standards of right 
living and right thinking became l)lurrcd or entirely ob- 
scured in the smoke that was wafted from scores of fiercely 
contested battle-fields, and men's worst passions, long 
repressed by the conventions of an orderly civilization, 
swayed their minds and governed their actions. To ex- 
travagance and waste, which were the natural accompani- 
ments and consequences of war, were added bribery and 
corruption among federal, state and city officials so flagrant 
as to make honest men hang their heads in shame and almost 
in despair, when, in 1876, the nation gathered in Philadel- 
phia to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

This high tide of official knavery and corruption was 
reached during the two terms of General Grant as President. 
A poor reader of character and drawn to rather than repelled 
by men of uncultivated tastes. Grant, in his simplicity, 
honesty and credulity, became the dupe of more than one 
designing scamp who used his official position to further 
his own ends, bringing disgrace and Ininiiliation upon his 
unsuspecting chief. The conditions, it must be admitted, 
however, were peculiar. Corruption was a disease of the 
time, and a stronger man than Grant proved to be might 

208 



DEMORALIZING EFFECTS OF CIVIL WAR 209 

have been powerless to counteract its subtle influence. The 
enormous requirements of the government during four years 
of war, together with the high tariff, had given an artificial 
stimulus to industries of all kinds, had made manufacturers 
and contractors rich beyond their wildest dreams, and had 
created a shoddy aristocracy based on wealth alone. The 
air, moreover, was feverish with speculative schemes, the 
possibilities of which threw men usually cool-headed off 
their mental and moral balance and made them both ava- 
ricious and unscrupulous. The extension of railroads into 
new grain-growing territory in the middle and far West and 
into the coal and iron fields, with the expansion and re- 
equipment of old roads to enable them to meet modern 
requirements, had the effect of creating powerful corpora- 
tions in need both of favorable legislation and of freedom 
from legislative interference in carrying out their far-reach- 
ing plans. Too often also loyalty to the cardinal doctrines 
of the Republican party, the enfranchisement of the negro 
and the suppression of the "rebel vote," was accepted as 
sufficient to excuse irregularity in official conduct, even 
when the obvious motive was personal gain. 

The facts, however, do not sustain the theory that hatred 
of the South and a desire for further revenge upon the 
prostrate people of that section were the principal motives 
which led the Republicans to give the ballot to the negro. 
To the Republicans then in Congress the peril to the nation 
involved in a possible union between the southern whites 
in control of their state governments and the copperheads 
of the North was very real. The ex-Confederates, we now 
know, were not deluding themselves with any such scheme 
to recover possession of the national government. Ex- 



2IO RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

hausted and ruined by the war, they recognized that both 
slavery and secession were dead beyond any hope of res- 
urrection. They accepted frankly the thirteenth amend- 
ment to the Constitution abohshing slavery in the United 
States. The North was still suspicious, however, and their 
conduct in passing through their state legislatures, imme- 
diately after the close of the war, laws regulating negro 
labor, vagrancy, etc., in refusing to accept the fourteenth 
amendment conferring the rights of citizenship upon the 
negro and putting pressure upon the states to allow him 
to vote, while at the same time disfranchising certain ex- 
Confederate soldiers, and finally in the Ku Klux Klan out- 
rages designed to frighten negroes from voting under the 
rights bestowed upon them by the fifteenth amendment, 
was conclusive evidence to the Republicans in Congress that 
the ex- Confederates were still at heart enemies of the Union 
and of the negro. 

In the perspective of half a century the bestowal of the 
suffrage upon the negroes is generally regarded as having 
been a grave political mistake. The public men of any 
period, however, are entitled to be judged by the light of 
the times in which they were obliged to do their work and 
not by that of subsequent events. In the view, then, of .men 
like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, the enfranchise- 
ment of the negroes was the only way by which the political 
power of the South for possible evil could be broken, unless 
the military occupation provided by the Reconstruction 
act of March, 1867, and by the force bills, so-called, of a 
later date, was to continue indefinitely. This view was not 
radical at that time. It was shared by men of the highest 
patriotism who had no selfish interest, political or other- 




^ reO^BOme SCENE IN THE CTTr OP O^Ks!' ^roT ^1r^. ,s6,. 




•' M«.n«. curs. •>'"'P,L 1 * • • » 

ml. Xn«e out repre«ont8 tha tate in store for those great pests of Southern society— 
The '""Y^ner and scalawag— if found in Dixie's land after the break of day on tho, 

the carpe*""T*^^_., 



EVIDENCE IN KU KLUX KLAN CASES BEFORE THE 

CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. 

Above: Fac-simile of a "gratuity" voted to Governor Moses by the South 
Carolina Legislature, in 1871. Below: A newspaper clipping. 



212 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

wise, at stake. "The bare idea," wrote John Jay to Sal- 
mon P. Chase, "of the rebel states casting their votes for 
election in 1868 — the blacks being fexcluded — and giving 
us again a Democratic and rebel government, is altogether 
intolerable, and yet that is what the northern Democracy 
begin to hope for and expect." 

Many people in the North, moreover, for whom Sumner 
was the spokesman, were influenced in favor of negro 
suffrage by humanitarian motives and by a belief that 
the negro, under protection and encouragement, would 
develop into a fairly intelligent and useful voter. The 
narrow-minded dogmatism, too, of the President, Andrew 
Johnson, a southern states-rights man of the old type, 
raised to his high position by the assassination of Lincoln, 
contributed its share to create the conditions which seemed 
to make the enfranchisement of the negroes necessary in 
order to insure the continued safety of the repubhc. 

Under these conditions it was perhaps not unnatural that 
the North, relieved at last from the prolonged strain of the 
great conflict and turning its mind again to industrial affairs, 
should receive with mild incredulity and with more or less 
indifference the reports of the wholesale robbery to which 
many of the southern states were subjected during the 
humiliating period of negro rule following the enforcement 
of the Reconstruction act, when the "carpet-baggers" and 
"scalawags," as the white Repubhcans from the North and 
of the South were respectively termed, were in full control 
of the state governments. Ninety per cent of the plunder 
derived from this orgy of negro legislation went into the 
pockets of these greedy and unscrupulous white adventur- 
ers whom the ignorant hordes of negroes, intoxicated by 



RESTORATION OF WHITE LEADERSHIP 213 

their sudden rise to their new estate as voters and office- 
holders, followed bhndly as representing the party which 
had delivered them from bondage. 

The turn of the tide of sentiment in the North came in 
1872, and was reflected by the action of Congress in passing 
the General Amnesty bill restoring to the great majority of 
the ex-Confederates their full political rights. Much of the 
bitterness of feeling which the war had left had died out in 
the meantime, there was less distrust of the designs of the 
southern leaders, and business affairs had acquired all- 
engrossing importance. The feeling gained ground stead- 
ily that the southern states would be obliged to solve as 
best they could the difficult problem of negro suffrage. 
Hence the North regarded with concern, but with a help- 
lessness which the presence of federal troops in the South 
was powerless to avert, the successful efforts which the 
southern whites made in the next few years to wrest the 
control of their state governments from the negroes and 
their disreputable white leaders. This result was accom- 
plished by a frank resort to intimidation, bribery, and 
fraud, by which the negro vote was driven or beguiled 
away from the polls or neutralized. 

Meanwhile the demoralizing, influences already referred 
to were at work in the North, fostered by the preoccupation 
of business men in their urgent private affairs and by the 
tyranny of partisan politics. Tweed and his rascally Tam- 
many associates got control of the government first of the 
city and then of the state of New York by fraudulently 
creating subservient voters out of fresh immigrants and by 
legislative bribery. During the four years from 1868 to 
187 1 the members of this corrupt ring stole from the city 



214 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

a sum variously estimated at from lift}- to two hundred 
millions of dollars, having the aid in this dastardly business 
of three compliant judges. In the summer of 1871 the 
thieves fell out and the facts showing the extent to which 
and the methods by which the city had been plundered for 
years were disclosed. The city once aroused was soon res- 
cued, and the robbers were driven into exile or thrown into 
jail. 

Tammany Hall under Tweed was Democratic, but the 
gas ring which flourished in Philadelphia and which, in 
the decade from 1870 to 1 881, added fifty millions to the 
debt of the city without any corresponding advantages to 
its citizens, was Republican throughout. Here again the 
management of the city departments, with limitless oppor- 
tunities for jobbery and plunder, was complacently left by 
the business men to the poHticians, who in turn provided 
at every election a large Republican vote and so safe- 
guarded the protective tariff upon which the Pennsylvania 
industries depended for a considerable percentage of their 
profits. Compared with New York the admixture of for- 
eign-born voters in Philadelphia was slight. In two great 
American cities, therefore, where the conditions at this 
period were entirely different the same pernicious influences 
were at work to the same end. It was not until 1881 that 
Philadelphia took effective steps to free itself from the 
mastery of this corrupt ring, with its state and federal alli- 
ances. 

National as well as city and state affairs afforded abun- 
dant evidence also of the serious moral malady from which 
the country was suffering. Grant's first term as President 
did not seem to enlarge his knowledge of human nature or 



2i6 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

to put him on his guard against avaricious conspirators who 
might be scheming to use him to their advantage. In the 
summer of 1869 he guilelessly allowed himself to be enter- 
tained, while on his way to the Peace Jubilee in Boston and 
later in New York City, by Jay Gould, and James Fisk, Jr., 
notorious even then for his profligacy and vulgarity, who 
together had possessed themselves of the Erie Railroad and 
who were intimate with Tweed, Sweeney and the Tammany 
ring judges, Barnard, Cardozo and McCunn. 

Gould's purpose in cultivating Grant's acquaintance was 
to guard against any interference by the government in his 
audacious plot to corner the market for gold, speculation 
in which at that time was very active. Grant's unsus- 
picious nature made him the easy prey of this wily schemer, 
who, with the help of Fisk, forced up the price of gold until, 
on the famous Black Friday, September 24, it reached 160, 
when the government began to sell gold from its surplus and 
thus broke the market. Gould, forewarned that at last 
his purpose was understood by the authorities at Washing- 
ton, saved himself by beginning to sell gold at the critical 
moment while Fisk remained a buyer and was o\'erwhelmed 
by contracts which he could not fulfil. The financial and 
mercantile community meanwhile suffered embarrassments 
and losses, and business interests throughout the country 
were disturbed and injured. 

Severer still was the blow which Grant's reputation re- 
ceived through the revelations of the pecuniary interest 
which his private secretary, Babcock, had in the frauds 
practised upon the government by the St. Louis whiskey 
ring, made up of distillers, internal revenue officers and 
officials in Washington. Through the powerful influence 



FRAUDS AMONG PUBLIC OFFICIALS 217 

of his distinguished chief, whose habit it was to stand by 
his friends through evil as well as through good report, 
Babcock was acquitted of the charge of conspiracy to de- 
fraud the revenue. The evidence, however, left it reason- 
ably clear that he had received a share of the ill-gotten 
profits of the ring and he was forced to vacate his ofhce. 
The frauds began as early as 1870 or 187 1, and among the 
men who were perpetrating them the supposition was sedu- 
lously cultivated that the stolen money, or a considerable 
proportion of it, went into a campaign fund to secure the 
renomination of Grant for a second and, later, for even a 
third term as President. Some of it may have been de- 
voted to this purpose, but no evidence was ever forthcom- 
ing to show that Grant, if he knew of this fund, was aware 
of the illegitimate source whence at least a part of it was 
derived. 

The climax of the President's humiliation was reached 
when in March, 1876, only a few months before the Repub- 
lican national convention was to meet, facts were laid 
before him proving conclusively that General Belknap, who 
had been his Secretary of War since 1869, had been receiv- 
ing since November, 1870, a share, perhaps twenty thou- 
sand dollars in all, of the profits of the lucrative office of 
the post-trader at Fort Sill, Indian Territory. Belknap 
resigned his office in disgrace before proceedings could be 
begun against him, and was allowed to disappear from the 
pubhc view. 

Other revelations, meanwhile, of the prevalence of bri- 
bery and corruption among national legislators, heretofore 
supposed to be above suspicion, added to the embarrass- 
ment of the Republicans and deepened the sickening sense 



2i8 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

of despair which honest men throughout the nation felt. 
These revelations, showing how insidious and mischievous 
an influence had been exercised for years among certain 
senators and representatives at Washington by the great 
railroad corporations, came to light both before and after 
the financial panic of 1873, with which they were indirectly 
connected. 

This panic was due to various causes, among which were 
the exhausting efTect and the enormous waste of the war 
and the destruction by fire of a large part of Chicago, in 
October, 1871, and of Boston, in 1872, with a total esti- 
mated loss amounting to the huge sum of $273,000,000. 
The principal cause, however, was the speculative expan- 
sion of all lines of business, and more especially of railroad 
building, in the years following the Civil War, to a point 
where it was impossible for the country to finance the 
projects with which it had overloaded itself. The average 
increase in railroad building during the four years from 
1865 to 1868, inclusive, was only a little over two thousand 
miles annually. In the next four years, however, more 
than twenty-four thousand miles were built or relaid, the 
steel rails produced by the new Bessemer process being 
used largely for the purpose.. Every branch of allied busi- 
ness, moreover, was pushed during this period to its utmost 
limit to keep pace with the demand. Prices, too, rose to 
abnormal heights — steel rails one hundred and twelve dol- 
lars a ton and pig-iron forty-nine dollars a ton. The com- 
mercial and industrial energy of the country had far outrun 
the volume of capital available for business purposes. 

Recourse in this emergency was had to foreign capital 
obtained through the sale of railroad bonds, but even this 



CREDIT-MOBILIER SCANDAL 219 

fresh supply of funds was not enough to meet the urgent 
needs of the time. The conditions grew more and more 
feverish until on September 18 the panic began with the 
failure of Jay Cooke & Co., the financial agents of the 
Northern Pacific Railway. The disastrous effects of the 
commercial crisis which followed the crash in Wall Street 
were felt throughout the country, and fully five years 
passed before business recovered its normal tone. 

In the winter before this financial storm broke the coun- 
try had been astonished and dismayed by the disclosures of 
wholesale attempts to bribe members of Congress in the 
interest of one of the great railroad corporations, the Union 
Pacific, by the distribution through Oakes Ames, a repre- 
sentative from Massachusetts, of stock in the construction 
company of the road, called the Credit Mobilier. Several 
men were practically ruined by these disclosures, the chief 
among them being Schuyler Colfax, a member of the House 
of Representatives from Indiana since 1854, Speaker of the 
House from 1863 to 1869, and Vice-President during Grant's 
first term. What amazed and appalled the country was 
not so much the discovery that two or three represent- 
atives and a senator should have been found guilty by 
the investigating committee as it was the revelation that 
men like Garfield, Dawes and Henry Wilson were regarded 
as not beyond the reach of the tempter. Dawes and Wilson 
were guilty only of impropriety; Garfield proved his inno- 
cence to the satisfaction of his Ohio constituency, and his 
election later to the Presidency must be accepted as a clean 
bill of moral health from the nation. 

Blaine fared less well in defending himself, in May and 
June of 1876, from the charge of having sold to the Union 



2 20 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

Pacific and two other railroad companies, at a far higher 
price than their real value, several hundred thousand dol- 
lars' worth of bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Rail- 
road with which he had become burdened, the inference 
being that these corporations expected him as a conse- 
quence to be friendly to 'their interests as Speaker or as a 
member of the House of Representatives. The situation 
called for a clear, simple statement of receipts and disburse- 
ments, fortified by cancelled checks and other ordinary 
documentary evidence. Blaine met it with a passionate 
and theatrical outburst of fervid rhetoric, proclaiming to 
the world his entire innocence and denouncing the ''rebel 
brigadiers" who, he charged, were attempting to ruin his 
character. His defense of his conduct convinced his friends 
and admirers, of whom he had many, of his innocence of 
wrong-doing, but did not convince the country at large. 
As a consequence he lost the RepubHcan nomination for 
the Presidency in 1876 and the election to the Presidency 
in 1884. 

By reason, therefore, of these shocking revelations of 
bribery and corruption in ofiicial circles and because of the 
depressed state of business following the panic of 1873, the 
Republicans found themselves on the defensive in the 
Hayes-Tilden cy.mpaign of 1876, at the close of Grant's two 
terms. They could point, however, to two acts of Grant's 
administration which reflected great credit upon him and 
upon the party — first, the Treaty of Washington, which his 
Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, had carried to a suc- 
cessful conclusion and under which, as has already been 
noted, Great Britain, by the award of the Geneva Tribunal 
of Arbitration, was compelled to pay the United States 



INTIMIDATION IN THE SOUTH 221 

fifteen and a half million dollars in compensation for the 
depredations of the Confederate cruisers, the Alabama, 
Florida and Shenandoah; and, sccondl}^ Grant's courageous 
veto of the Inflation bill, by which it was proposed to in- 
crease the volume of outstanding greenbacks from $382,- 
000,000 to $400,000,000. The resumption of specie pay- 
ments did not take place until 1879, but this veto of the 
Inflation bill was most serviceable as a check upon the 
desire of the West and South to attempt to cure the financial 
ills of the time by the simple and easy expedient of printing 
more government money, and went far toward leading 
the country back to principles of sound national finance. 

In the attempt to divert attention from the scandals of 
the Grant administration and from the depressed state of 
business, the Republicans made the horrors of the "bloody 
shirt" — the assaults upon negroes being summarized in this 
lurid phrase — the danger of a "soHd South" and the dread 
of the "rebel brigadiers" in Congress the issues in the 
Hayes campaign, and on those issues won the election 
through the grace of the Electoral Commission in awarding 
the votes of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana to 
Hayes. Early in 1877 the Florida Democrats recovered 
control of their state government; and soon after he was 
inaugurated President Hayes withdrew the federal troops 
from Florida and Louisiana, the only remaining states in 
which they were still quartered, thus acknowledging the 
utter failure of the policy of his party, adopted a decade 
earlier, of imposing negro rule upon the old slave states by 
force. 

Since then the southern whites, with the tacit acquies- 
cence of the North, save for an occasional outburst in Con- 



222 RECONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION 

gress, have retained possession of their state governments 
and of all election machinery, local, state and federal, by 
a resort to intimidation, justifying their course on the 
ground of absolute necessity, if the intelligence, wealth and 
honesty, instead of the ignorance, poverty and dishonesty, 
of a community, were to rule. "We hear much," wrote the 
late Henry W. Grady, of the Atlanta Constitution, "of the 
intimidation of the colored vote of the South. There is 
intimidation, but it is the menace of the compact and solid 
wealth and intelligence of a great social system. Against 
this menace, peaceful and majestic, counter-organization 
cannot stand. That is why the negro fails to vote in the 
South. He will not vote except under persistent and sys- 
tematic and inspiring organization. This organization can- 
not be eiTected or maintained against a powerful and united 
social system that embraces the wealth and intelligence of 
the community. " 

In spite, therefore, of the amendments to the Constitu- 
tion that were passed in order to secure to him his rights as 
a citizen, the negro is in effect disfranchised throughout the 
old slave states. The North accepts the situation with only 
perfunctory protests, the peril which seemed so threatening 
to Stevens, Sumner and their associates no longer existing. 



XVIII 
POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

With the disappearance of slavery and the "solid South" 
as issues in national politics, a new era began in the history 
of the American people, an era in which problems in eco- 
nomics and finance pressed for solution; problems arising 
from the rapid increase in the material prosperity of the 
country and from the necessity of changes in the laws to 
meet these new conditions. 

One of the most important of these problems was the 
tariff. The Republican party committed itself to a pro- 
tective tariff almost at the very beginning of its history, 
in the platform on which Lincoln was elected President in 
i860; and with courage, consistency and signal ability has 
advocated a protective tariff from that day to this. The 
leaders of the party in i860 realized that the twenty-seven 
electoral votes of Pennsylvania, even then a state with 
large and valuable manufacturing interests, especially in 
iron and steel and their products, would be necessary in 
order to insure the election of Lincoln. A plank was there- 
fore inserted in the Republican platform declaring that a 
sound policy required the adjustment of import duties so 
as "to encourage the development of the industrial interests 
of the whole country" — an announcement that was re- 
ceived with enthusiasm by the Pennsylvania delegates to 
the convention. This declaration of a protective tariff 
policy was the chief influence in securing the electoral 

223 



2 24 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

votes of Pennsylvania and New Jersey for Lincoln in the 
memorable contest of i860, overshadowing in importance 
even slavery as an issue in those states. 

During the Civil War the rates of duty established by 
the Morrill tariff bill, which became a law in 1861, were 
raised from time to time in order to secure much-needed 
revenue to meet the expenses of the war rather than to pro- 
vide additional protection for American industries. Hav- 
ing accustomed themselves, however, to these high rates 
and having enjoyed the increased profits obtainable under 
them, the manufacturers in the middle Atlantic and New 
England states were unwilling to have them lowered when, 
in 1870, the demand for a downward revision of the tariff 
made itself felt among the Republicans of the middle West. 
So powerful, moreover, had these industrial interests be- 
come and so close was the alliance which they had estab- 
lished with the leaders of the Republican party, that they 
won a substantial victory by preventing any general or 
systematic reduction of the duties. Again, a decade later, 
the agitation against the high war duties, as they were still 
called, under the shelter of which, it was charged by the 
Democrats, monopolies were being fostered, the country's 
foreign exports were languishing, and the surplus in the 
national treasury was feeing augmented to dangerous pro- 
portions, made a further revision of the tariff necessary. 
The new tariff bill which was passed in 1883 in order to 
quiet this agitation, ])ut which made only a slight modifi- 
cation in the protective duties, was satisfactory to neither 
party. 

The vote by which this measure became a law revealed 
one fact, however, of no Uttle significance: thirty-one Dem- 



INFLUENCE OF HIGH-TARIFF DEMOCRATS 225 

ocrats, twenty-one representatives and ten senators, voted 
with the RepubHcans in favor of maintaining high duties. 
From this time on the protectionist Democrats from the 
manufacturing states, at first of the North, but, of late years, 
of the South as well, where coal and iron mines have been 
developed and where many cotton and other mills have 
been built, have proved to be the most useful allies of the 
Republicans in maintaining the high rates of duty. Thus, 
while the Republican party has always been practically 
united on this question, save for the desertion in recent 
years of the Progressives, so-called, of the middle West, 
the Democracy has been hopelessly divided. Theoretically 
committed by their party platforms to a tariff for revenue 
only, with an occasional concession in the form of "inci- 
dental protection" to American industries, the Democrats 
of the most influence in Congress, men of the type of 
Randall of Pennsylvania, Gorman of Maryland, Brice of 
Ohio, and Hill of New York, placed the business inter- 
ests of their constituents above party loyalty and above 
party pledges, and more than once united with the Re- 
publicans in order to prevent any material downward 
revision of the leading tariff schedules. In 1884, when the 
Democrats were in control of the Hjuse, no fewer than 
forty-one Democratic representatives, under the leader- 
ship of Samuel J. Randall, voted with the Republicans and 
so secured the defeat of the Morrison bill providing for a 
horizontal reduction of twenty per cent from the rates 
established by the tariff act of the previous year. 

Cleveland embodied the desire of the rank and file of 
his party to have the tariff duties substantially reduced, 
and endeavored in each of his terms of office, and more 



2 26 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

especially in the second, to accomplish this end. In his 
first term a Repubhcan Senate blocked his efforts to secure 
the passage of the Mills bill; and in his second term, when 
for the first time since 1856 both houses of Congress and the 
President were Democratic, Gorman, Brice, Hill and other 
Democratic senators united with Senator Aldrich, the 
astute leader of the Republicans, to render the Wilson bill 
practically harmless, so far as the more important of the 
protected industries were concerned. Disheartened and 
discouraged by the party treachery of the Democratic 
leaders, Cleveland allowed the bill to become a law with- 
out his signature. 

In his first term a huge surplus in the national treasury, 
largely the product of the high tariff rates, threatened dan- 
ger to the business interests of the country and was the 
excuse for the Mills bill. When he came into power for 
a second term in 1893, ^^e McKinley tariff bill having been 
the main issue in the campaign, Cleveland found himself 
face to face not with a surplus but with a deficit in the 
treasury. During the intervening administration of Presi- 
dent Harrison the Republicans had disposed effectually of 
the surplus. New pension legislation and lavish appro- 
priations for river and harbor bills, for public buildings and 
for vessels for the navy, had the effect of, if they were not 
deliberately designed for the express purpose of, prevent- 
ing the Democrats, when next they came into power, from 
using the existence of a dangerously large surplus as an 
argument for reducing tariff rates. The pension legisla- 
tion of this period, which increased the annual charge 
against the treasury from sixty-live million dollars in the 
opening year of Cleveland's first term, 1885, to one hundred 



POWER OF BUSINESS INTERESTS 227 

and thirty-nine million dollars in the final year of Har- 
rison's term, 1892, was effectively cited by the Democrats 
as an illustration of the government extravagance and 
wastefulness which a high protective tariff engendered. 
It was the depleted condition of the treasury when Cleve- 
land entered upon his second term in 1893 that enabled 
Gorman and Brice to base their public opposition to the 
Wilson bill on the ground that its operation would leave 
the treasury with a deficit of a hundred million dollars. 

The Wilson bill supplanted the high-tariff McKinley bill 
of 1890 which had been repudiated by the country in the 
fall elections of the same year and which was mainly 
instrumental in making both the legislative and executive 
branches of the government Democratic two years later. 
The Dingley tariff bill of 1897 and the Payne-Aldrich bill 
of 1909 afforded fresh evidence of the closeness of the alli- 
ance between the protected manufacturing interests and 
the RepubHcan leaders in Congress. The Wilson bill, 
partly owing to the depression in business following the 
panic of 1893, had not proved to be satisfactory, and the 
Republicans, again swept into power in 1896 by the popu- 
lar revulsion against Bryan and free silver, substituted for 
it the Dingley tariff bill. As in the Payne-Aldrich bill of a 
dozen years later some schedules were modified and a few 
raw materials were placed on the free list. But for the 
great bulk of manufactured articles the rates remained high. 

Various new ideas were embodied in these measures — 
provisions for reciprocity treaties and a system of maxi- 
mum and minimum rates of duty, both of which were 
designed to force tariff concessions from foreign countries. 
The Payne-Aldrich bill provided for a board of tariff ex- 



2 28 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

perts to make a scientific examination of the tariff rates, 
schedule by schedule, as a basis for more intelligent legis- 
lation than had heretofore been possible. It remains to 
be seen from the action of Congress on the reports of this 
board on the wool and other schedules whether the down- 
ward revision of the tariff is henceforth to proceed along 
scientific Hnes or is to be practically dictated, as heretofore, 
by the leading manufacturers concerned. However much 
truth, finally, there may be in the Democratic contention 
that the protective tariff has produced swollen fortunes at 
one end of the social scale and wide-spread povert}^ and dis- 
content at the other, and has begotten wellnigh criminal 
extravagance in the conduct of the government's business, 
few will be disposed to deny that, taken as a whole, the 
country has prospered marvellously under the tarilY policy 
of the Repubhcans. 

Of even greater importance than the tariff was the con- 
test for sound money which began with Grant's veto of 
the Inflation bill and continued for a full quarter of a cen- 
tury before the gold standard was finally adopted as the 
basis for the government's system of finance. For a decade 
after the close of the Civil War the popularity of the green- 
back was great. The notion had become widely prevalent 
toward the end of this period, especially in the middle West 
and South, that the needs of the country for a larger volume 
of currency could be satisfied if the government would 
print more greenbacks. What the West and the South 
needed was not a more generous distribution by the gov- 
ernment of paper currency but additional capital, and 
capital could be had only in exchange for labor or commodi- 
ties. But with all their available capital tied up in real 



' LEGISLATION IN FAVOR OF SILVER 229 

estate and in manufacturing and farming enterprises, and 
with their debts steadily increasing, the men of the West 
and the South looked to the government for relief, and mis- 
takenly thought that relief could he had through the issue 
of more "fiat" money. Grant's veto of the Inflation bill 
and the ample opportunities for discussion which the lean 
years following the panic of 1873 afforded, did much to 
dispel the illusions which had become popularly associated 
with the greenback. 

It was in this period of inactivity in business and in this 
manner that the attention of the West and of the South 
became diverted from greenbacks to silver as a promising 
remedy for the inadequacy of the circulating medium. 
In the preceding half-dozen years the production of silver 
in the Rocky Mountain states had been increasing enor- 
mously. The value of the silver output of these states, 
which in 1861 was only $2,000,000, reached $12,000,000 in 
1868, $28,750,000 in 1872 and $37,000,000 in 1874. Four 
years later, when the production had reached $40,000,000, 
the demand, especially from the silver-producing states, 
that Congress provide some method by which this huge 
volume of the white metal might be absorbed into the 
coinage system of the country became incessant and insist- 
ent. Many of the arguments that prevailed during the 
greenback craze were readapted to meet the silver situa- 
tion and were repeated with new energy, the association 
of abundant money and business prosperity having fixed 
itself firmly in the minds of multitudes of men, not a few 
of whom were outspoken in their advocacy of even the free 
coinage of silver. 

So strongly and widely held were these views that in 



230 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

1878 Congress was compelled to pass the Bland-Allison 
bill restoring the silver dollar to the standard coinage, from 
which it had been dropped five years earlier, providing for 
the coinage of from two to four million dollars in silver 
each month, and making silver dollars legal tender to any 
amount. In the same year the further retirement of green- 
backs was forbidden; what the people wanted was not less 
but more ''money." Under the stimulus of these govern- 
ment purchases the production of silver increased rapidly 
until in 1890 it reached $57,000,000. Efforts were making 
meanwhile to interest other nations in silver. Commis- 
sioners were sent abroad in the hope of persuading leading 
foreign governments of the advantages of international 
bimetallism. European financiers, however, turned an 
unsympathetic ear to the arguments of the American 
emissaries; the single gold standard, they said, satisfied all 
their needs. 

The demands of the advocates of silver kept pace with 
the constantly increasing production of the mines, however, 
and at last the pressure became too strong longer to be 
resisted. In response to these demands Congress in 1890 
passed the Sherman Silver Purchase bill, in accordance with 
which the government engaged to buy, each month, four 
and a half million ounces of silver at the market rate, not 
to exceed $1.29 an ounce, paying therefor by issues of legal- 
tender treasury notes redeemable in gold or silver at the 
option of the government. In other words, the govern- 
ment pledged itself to buy from the states of the far West 
practically the entire output of their silver mines. The 
arrangement was a profitable one for the mine-owners, but 
proved to be costly for the country at large. 



CLEVELAND'S CHARACTERISTICS 231 

Under these heavy monthly purchases by the government 
the price of silver naturally began to fall. In the three 
years that intervened between the passage of the Silver 
Purchase bill and the special session of Congress called by 
Cleveland in August, 1893. the price declined from $1.09 to 
75 cents an ounce. Meanwhile, by the operation of a law 
well known to students of finance, the cheaper metal, silver, 
had been driving the dearer metal, gold, out of the country 
in exchange for American bonds and other securities which 
European holders did not care to carry longer for fear lest 
the American passion for silver might precipitate a catas- 
trophe involving them in heavy losses. The government's 
gold reserve had been drained in this operation to such an 
extent that the danger became great that the national 
finances would be forced upon a silver basis, with serious 
injury to credit and to industries of all classes. 

The repeal of the Silver Purchase act at this special ses- 
sion of Congress came too late. The mischief had already 
been done, and in the next few years Cleveland was obliged 
to purchase more than $150,000,000 in gold through the 
sale of bonds to New York bankers and to the public in 
order to keep the government's gold reserve above the 
danger mark and to preserve the relative values of gold 
and silver. The intelligence, moral courage and strength 
of will which enabled Cleveland, without help either from 
his own party in Congress, the leaders of which he had 
antagonized, or from the Republicans, to carry the national 
finances through this crisis, may in time be regarded by 
history as his highest title to the gratitude of his country- 
men. 

Other causes than the government's purchases of silver 



232 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

contributed largely to the panic of 1893 — agricultural de- 
pression, the excessive mortgaging of farms, reckless rail- 
way financiering and extravagance in public and private life. 
The panic served to bring freshly to light, however, the 
defects of a monetary system which for years had favored 
silver at the expense of gold. The lessons of the \rdnic 
were therefore an educational influence of the highest value. 
The advocates of sound money, moreover, had been far 
from idle during these years, and the effects of their teach- 
ings were revealed in the presidential campaign of 1896, 
when the business interests not only of the East but of the 
West united to defeat Bryan, the candidate representing 
free silver. The general revival of business in McKinley's 
first administration and the great increase in the production 
of gold in the far West and in Alaska, the advance being 
steady from $36,000,000 in 1893 to $79,000,000 in 1900, 
were also important influences ' affecting public opinion in 
favor of sound money. In 1900, therefore, in response to 
a demand directly opposite in character to that which had 
prevailed ten years earlier, an act of Congress placed the 
finances of the nation on a gold basis. The defeat of 
Bryan for a second time in the autumn of the same year 
stamped the national seal of approval upon this act, and 
put an end to the agitation in favor of free silver. 

The panic of 1907, following laxity and extravagance 
in insurance and trust company management, over-specu- 
lation in real estate projects and an undue extension of 
many branches of business, illustrated anew in its paralyzing 
effects the necessity for the reform of the coinage and cur- 
rency system of the country. What was needed has been 
admirably summarized by A. Barton Hepburn, a high 



PURCHASE OF ALASKA 233 

authority in banking, in his Contest for Sound Money — a 
monetary system which would give stabihty to metallic 
money and security and flexibihty to paper currency, to the 
end that prices might remain steady and interest rates 
continue reasonably uniform and equitable throughout the 
country. Whether or not a system possessing these merits 
is to be found in the recommendations submitted to Con- 
gress in January, 191 2, of the National Monetary Commis- 
sion, of which ex-Senator Aldrich was the chairman, remains 
to be seen. The adoption of such a system is not expected 
to prevent panics so much as to deprive panics of some of 
their most disastrous accompaniments and consequences. 

Aside from those which have already been referred to 
or which will be considered in a later chapter, the two most 
important events in the foreign relations of the nation 
since the Civil War have been the purchase of Alaska in 
1867 and the vigorous assertion by President Cleveland in 
1895 of the Monroe Doctrine as a means of compelling 
Great Britain to submit its boundary dispute with Ven- 
ezuela to arbitration. The circumstances under which 
Secretary Seward obtained Alaska from Russia for the 
sum of $7,200,000 were all propitious. The people of the 
Pacific states and territories had for years been anxious to 
acquire fishing rights along the coast of Alaska, and Russia 
was very willing to sell a possession from which little or 
no revenue was derived and which was remote and difficult 
to defend, especially as the results of the Crimean War had 
made it necessary for the Russian government to husband 
its energies and to concentrate its resources. Not a few 
men in Congress and a considerable portion of the public 
were disposed to take a jocose view of the expenditure of 



234 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

so large a sum of money for the purchase of a country 
which was supposed to be covered for the greater part with 
snow and ice and which was facetiously termed Walrussia. 
Time, however, proved that the judgment of Secretary 
Seward, who had the imagination to foresee the strategic 
and commercial advantages likely to result from the acqui- 
sition of the territory, was sound. For the purchase proved 
to be one of the most fortunate and profitable that the 
United States ever made. It added an area of 590,884 
square miles to the national domain — an area a third 
greater than that of the Atlantic states from Maine to 
Florida; and the value of the principal products of the land 
and the waters of the country, furs, fish and minerals, from 
1867 down to 191 2, has exceeded the huge total of $420,- 
000,000. It is worthy of remark that the negotiations 
with reference to this purchase were greatly facilitated by 
the use of the Atlantic cable, the successful laying of which, 
due to the boundless faith and indomitable energy of Cyrus 
W. Field, had been completed in the previous year. 

The Monroe Doctrine, which had lain dormant since 
1866, when, with the veteran troops of Grant and Sherman 
behind it, it had only to be referred to in order to force the 
French army of occupation, sent thither by Napoleon III, 
out of Mexico, was revived in 1895 by President Cleveland 
and his Secretary of State, Richard Olney, and was made 
to apply to the boundary dispute, which had been in exist- 
ence for half a century, between Venezuela and British 
Guiana. The position of Cleveland and Olney seemed to 
be that as Great Britain had repeatedly refused to submit 
the dispute to arbitration, and was apparently determined 
to impose its will and its notion of the proper boundary line 



VENEZUELA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 235 

upon a weak and helpless nation, the Monroe Doctrine was 
clearly applicable to the case. Cleveland also appears to 
have thought that if he adopted a firm tone and made per- 
fectly clear the intention of the United States to fight rather 
than tamely to allow Venezuela to be despoiled of territory 
that might rightfully belong to her, England would back 
down. He may have been convinced, moreover, that war 
would be less likely to result from his message to Congress, 
with its provision for a commission of inquiry, involving 
consequent delay, than from the agitation of the subject in 
Congress and in the sensational newspapers, with possibly 
irritating effects upon both Englishmen and Americans, 
while further futile negotiations were dragging along. He 
certainly assured his intimates at the time that the message 
would result not in war but in arbitration, and this pre- 
diction turned out to be correct. 

The risk, however, which Cleveland took in this affair 
was great, and the verdict of history will probably be that 
it was rather through good fortune than good judgment 
that serious trouble was avoided. For the timely inter- 
vention of Jameson's raid into the Transvaal occurred at 
this moment, and the congratulatory dispatch of the Ger- 
man Emperor to President Kriiger so incensed and in- 
flamed all England that Venezuela and Cleveland's belli- 
cose message were forgotten. Lord Salisbury, who had 
maintained from the first that the Monroe Doctrine was 
not applicable to the controversy — a position since shared 
by not a few historians and publicists, American as well as 
foreign — finally consented to arbitration, and the grave 
danger that undoubtedly lay in the situation was happily 
averted. 



236 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

Cleveland's second term of office was noteworthy not 
only for his courageous stand in favor of sound money and 
for his controversy with England over Venezuela, but for 
the substantial assistance which he gave to the cause of 
civil service reform. The greatest advances which have 
been made under the Pendleton Civil Service law, passed in 
1883, in taking the appointment of government officials 
out of the control of the politicians, are to be credited to 
President Cleveland and President Roosevelt. At the end 
of 191 1 about 230,000 government positions were in the 
classified service. Nearly all of these offices, however, as 
was pointed out by Dr. Charles W. Eliot, the president of 
the National Civil Service Reform League, in the address 
which was read in Philadelphia, in December, 191 1, are 
subordinate places with low salaries. On the other hand, 
nearly all the superior offices, having good or high salaries 
worth assessing for political purposes, more than one hun- 
dred thousand in number, are still filled by the patronage 
method. "It is their grip," Dr. Eliot added, "on the vast 
total of the salaries paid to pubhc officers appointed by the 
patronage method, and on the personal services of such 
officers, which maintains the bosses, rings and machines," 
and which prolongs "the power of the senators, congress- 
men, governors, mayors and state, county or city elected 
representatives and officials who control all the appoint- 
ments not made on the merit system." 

President Taft recommended that the entire executive 
civil service of the national government, excluding officers 
responsible for the policy of administration and their im- 
mediate personal assistants or deputies, be placed on the 
merit system of api)ointm('nt . I'or the reasons, however. 




THOMAS A. EDISON AT WORK IN HIS LABORATORY IN ORANGE, 

NEW JERSEY. 

From a photograph copyright by W. K. I. Dickson. 



238 POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS 

so tersely stated by Dr. Eliot, the politicians in Congress 
have not thus far shown any disposition to resign their pat- 
ronage prerogatives. Further education of public opinion 
and further pressure upon Congress will be necessary before 
this final and decisive step in the reform can be taken. 

The inventive ingenuity of the American people has 
kept pace in its development since the Civil War with the 
progress of the nation in other fields of endeavor. Indeed, 
a book might easily be written about the wonderful dis- 
coveries, especially in electricity, of the last thirty or forty 
years — discoveries the practical applicati'on of which to 
every-day uses has brought about great changes in the 
social and industrial life of every community. Several of 
these inventions, notably the Bell telephone and the Edison 
incandescent light, with the application of electricity as 
power to street cars and to other purposes, have proved to 
be scarcely less serviceable to humanity than the discovery, 
half a century earher, that steam-power could be used to 
propel railway trains and vessels. 

Alexander Graham Bell received his patent for his re- 
markable invention in 1876. So universal since then has 
become the use of the telephone that in 191 1 the daily 
average number of messages passing over the nearly thir- 
teen milHon miles of Bell wires in the United States was 
more than twenty-four million, representing a total for 
the year of considerably more than seven and a half billion 
messages. The Edison electric light which has displaced 
gas as effectually as the automobile in its various forms 
has displaced the horse, dates only from 1880, when it was 
first publicly exhibited. Electricity has become a means 
also of generating heat as well as of Hght and power, and 



AMERICAN INVENTIVE INGENUITY 239 

fuel oil, as a source of power for driving vessels and loco- 
motive as well as stationary engines, is coming into more 
and more general use every year. 

It would be a mistake, moreover, to regard the Edison 
phonograph and the graphophone in their perfected forms 
and the various self-playing pianos, especially those with 
electrical attachments, merely as toys of marvellous inge- 
nuity. For these inventions have undoubtedly done more 
in portions of the country remote from the larger cities to 
develop among the people a taste for good music than 
could have been accomplished in generations without their 
aid. Finally, those two wonderful playthings of the air, 
aeroplanes, in the successful construction and manipula- 
tion of which Wilbur Wright and his brother, of Dayton, 
Ohio, were the pioneers, and dirigible balloons, have yet 
to prove their practical value. He would be rash indeed, 
however, who, in the light of the marvellous achievements 
of the last quarter of a century, should venture to predict 
that they are to remain toys of extraordinary ingenuity or 
that man's mastery of the land and the sea is not at some 
time in the future to extend to the air in such a way as to 
be of practical service to humanity. 



XIX 
BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

No economic question of wider public interest ever arose 
in the United States than that precipitated in 191 1 by the 
disintegration, under the decisions of the Supreme Court, 
of the Standard Oil and the American Tobacco companies. 
In its simplest form this question concerned itself with the 
relative merits of the opposing principles of industrial com- 
bination on the one hand and of industrial competition and 
individualism on the other. In order to make clear the 
nature of this controversy it will be necessary to recall 
briefly the causes which led to the passage by Congress, first 
of the Interstate Commerce bill, in 1887, and, more espe- 
cially, of the Sherman Anti-trust bill, so-called, in 1890. 

The Interstate Commerce law was enacted, first, for the 
purpose of checking the growing tendency on the part of 
railway corporations to form agreements regarding freight 
rates and to make pooling arrangements regarding earnings, 
thus eliminating competition with each other; and, secondly, 
in order to prevent discriminations in freight rates in favor 
of this or that individual or corporation, this or that com- 
munity, or this or that commodity. The law forbade these 
practices, made the publicity of rates compulsory, and 
created a commission to investigate complaints and to 
impose fines for violations of the law. A federal law was 
necessary in order to accomplish this end because the 

240 



RAILWAY CORPORATIONS AND TRUSTS 241 

Supreme Court had just decided that the power of a state 
to regulate railway matters was restricted to the traffic 
within its own borders; and a federal law was fortunately 
made possible by the clause in the Constitution giving Con- 
gress authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations 
and among the states. " Such was the rapidity with which 
new railways had been and were later constructed that the 
total mileage for the United States reached not far from 
two hundred and fifty thousand in 191 2. 

In the middle 'eighties the railway corporations, with 
their agreements, pools, discriminations and rebates, were 
the chief objects of complaints on the part of shippers. As 
the years passed, however, the attention of the pubHc and 
of Congress was attracted more and more to the combina- 
tions or trusts, as they came to be called, in various indus- 
tries, particularly in those dealing in iron, steel, woollen 
goods and oil products, and to the effects upon prices of 
these trusts. It was soon realized that an important eco- 
nomic change was foreshadowed by this tendency toward 
concentration. Individual initiative and enterprise and 
domestic freedom in competition, which had supplied the 
motive power for American industrial progress for a cen- 
tury, seemed to be threatened by the new business prin- 
ciple of combination and community of interests, the 
effects, if not the purposes, of which might be restraint of 
trade, monopoly and high prices. 

Such were the conditions when, in 1890, the Sherman 
Anti-trust bill was passed. The purpose of the measure, 
in a word, was to make illegal any combination of corpora- 
tions or individual manufacturers, ordinarily competitive, 
in restraint of trade and thus resulting in or tending 



242 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

toward monopoly. Prices were so high in 1890 as to be 
subjects for newspaper comment; and Senator Sherman, in 
introducing the Anti-trust bill, said, referring to the indus- 
trial combinations against which it was aimed, "Congress 
alone can deal with them, and if we are unwilling or unable, 
there will soon be a trust for every production and a master 
to fix the price of every necessary of life." The bill as it 
was finally passed was in the main the work of Senator 
Edmunds and of other members of the Judiciary Committee, 
to which on its introduction it was referred. The expecta- 
tion of the framers of the measure was that it would have 
the effect of re-establishing on a firm and lasting basis the 
economic principle of free competition and individual enter- 
prise in American industrial affairs. 

No such immediate result, however, followed. Save for 
the suits brought under President Harrison's administra- 
tion against the Whiskey trust and the Sugar trust, both 
of which were unsuccessful because of inefficient manage- 
ment, the law became and remained a dead letter, ignored 
or forgotten apparently by everybody for more than a 
decade. The reasons for this neglect are not far to seek. 
In those days, the railroads, as has already been explained, 
were the chief offenders, and it was to the railroad com- 
panies that the government gave the most attention. 
Moreover, industrial trusts were not then numerous, and, 
with few exceptions, were not formidable. Indeed, several 
of them, notably the Cordage trust, became involved in 
financial difficulties in consequence of the panic of 1893 ^^^ 
were virtually forced out of business. They were regarded 
with more or less suspicion by both bankers and public, 
and most of them seemed likely to hang themselves without 



WORLD-WIDE VIEWS OF TRADE 243 

help from the government, if the traditional length of cor- 
dage were vouchsafed them. 

The conditions, in truth, calling for the enforcement of 
the Anti-trust law did not exist until after the war with 
Spain. That war and its results, however, set in motion, 
in 1898, a powerful current of new ideas, which seemed to 
have an immediate and an extraordinary effect upon the 
imaginations and upon the temperaments, usually more or 
less conservative if not phlegmatic, of business men through- 
out the country, resulting in a condition of affairs of deep 
interest to the student of what may perhaps be called 
mercantile psychology. The force of circumstances had at 
last made the American nation a world power, with out- 
lying dependencies and with corresponding obligations and 
responsibihties. Isolation, detachment from the affairs 
of the outside world, which Washington in his Farewell 
Address had advised, was no longer possible either in poli- 
tics or in business. The barriers were down, and oppor- 
tunity beckoned to men of self-confidence, daring and large 
ideas. 

It was under the influence of these ambitious and far- 
reaching dreams that the great movement began in 1899 
to bring whole industries under the control of boards of 
directors of single corporations. The technical conditions 
at the moment were all of a character, moreover, to en- 
courage those eager to organize and finance big projects. 
Money was plentiful; general business was good; sentiment 
was optimistic; the tariff was settled by the Dingley law for 
a long time, it was thought, to come; no further danger 
was apprehended from Bryan and free silver; the gold 
standard was about to be adopted as a permanent basis for 



244 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

the nation's linances; prosperity had come even to the 
farmers of the middle West; the crops were more varied in 
character and had increased greatly in value, wheat, for 
example, from $213,000,000 in 1893 to $392,000,000 in 
1898; finally, as if in anticipation of this very situation, the 
New Jersey Holding Company law, which had recently been 
passed, offered, by its comprehensiveness and elasticity, a 
convenient means by which whole industries could be com- 
bined under a compact central management, with promises 
of large profits to the promoters of these enterprises. 

Such was the feverish energy with which, under these 
favorable conditions, new combinations were organized, 
that in the single year of 1899 the capitalization of the 
various industrial corporations formed amounted, accord- 
ing to careful estimates, to the huge total of three and a 
half billion dollars, a not inconsiderable part of which 
represented such intangible assets as patents, good-will 
and even expectations. Railway systems, moreover, as 
well as manufacturing industries, were subjected, in the 
years immediately following, to the same process of com- 
bination under the management of individuals or small 
groups of men. Mr. Harriman brought the Union, Cen- 
tral and Southern Pacific systems, one-third of the total 
railway mileage of the United States, under his personal 
authority, and the Northern Securities Company, formed 
by Mr. Hill, exercised virtual ownership and control over 
the three systems of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern 
and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. Similar influences 
were at work, meanwhile, among the large financial insti- 
tutions of the country, the national banks, trust companies, 
insurance companies and great banking houses, the appar- 



DANGER OF INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS 245 

ent purpose of which was gradually to concentrate, in the 
hands of a comparatively small group of men, the control, 
for good or evil, of enormous financial resources. The 
extreme lengths to which even men of character and repute 
and of influence in the world of finance seemed ready to 
go in those days, if unchecked by publicity and the result- 
ing public opinion, were clearly indicated by the revelations 
of the legislative inquiry, conducted by Mr. Hughes, into 
the management of the great insurance companies of New 
York City. 

The gravest danger, however, lay in the industrial com- 
binations, which multiplied so rapidly that by the end of 
1903 practically every important industry in the country 
had been subjected to the process of consolidation into one 
or more big units. The danger was that these huge indus- 
trial organizations representing vast amounts of capital 
might come to regard themselves as superior to the law 
and as free to exercise their will, with reference to smaller 
competitors or to prices, without let or hindrance from 
the government or from any other source. The apparent 
aims and the business methods, moreover, of not a few of 
these combinations indicated either ignorance of the scope 
and purpose of the Anti-trust law or a belief that the law 
was to be allowed to lie in abeyance. The conjecture was 
even hazarded that these corporations supposed themselves 
to be too rich and too powerful ever to be successfully at- 
tacked by the government for a violation of its provisions. 

The duty of combating and of effectively checking this 
tendency in the economic development of the nation fell 
to the lot of President Roosevelt, who succeeded President 
McKinley when the latter was assassinated at Buffalo in 



246 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

1 90 1, the conditions then prevailing being exactly those 
which the Sherman Anti-trust law was designed to cor- 
rect. In his very lirst message President Roosevelt indi- 
cated the lines along which he thought the government 
should proceed with reference to the trusts, holding that 
"industrial combination and concentration should be, not 
prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits 
controlled, " the first prerequisite to which was full publicity 
as to the affairs of corporations doing an interstate business 
as a basis for proper government regulation. The disso- 
lution, in 1904, of the Northern Securities Company as a 
combination in restraint of trade, and so monopolistic, was 
the result of the first aggressive step in the crusade which 
he carried on, with determination and fearlessness, to com- 
pel rich malefactors to bring their business affairs into ac- 
cord with the letter and the spirit of the Anti-trust law; 
and the disintegration of the Standard Oil Company and 
of the American Tobacco Company under similar decisions 
in 191 1 was the final fruit of further action which he took 
to the same end. President Roosevelt held resolutely at 
the same time to the position that modern industrial con- 
ditions were, such that big combinations of capital were as 
inevitable as corresponding combinations of labor, and that 
it was idle to attempt or to desire to put an end to either. 
It was not the size but the purposes and business methods 
of the corporation which might make it a violator of the 
Anti-trust law. The remedy was to be found in govern- 
ment supervision and control, as in the case of the railways 
and national banks. In 1906, in line with these recom- 
mendations, the scope of the Interstate Commerce law was 
enlarged by further legislation so that those other "com- 



248 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

mon carriers," express companies, sleeping-car companies 
and oil-pipe lines, were also brought under the supervision 
and control of the commission. 

Many suits were begun by the government in the admin- 
istrations of President Roosevelt and President Taft for 
violations of the Anti-trust law, and for a time, following 
the panic of 1907, the former was denounced on all sides 
for "interfering with business." By the end of 1911, how- 
ever, it became evident that a decided change of opinion, 
as regards the Sherman law in its relation to trusts, had 
taken place among the business men directly or indirectly 
affected by the measure, as well as among the people at 
large. Although new corporations with a capitalization 
of not far from two billion dollars were formed in 191 1, 
the absence of any fresh projects for industrial consolida- 
tions, the public announcement of the abandonment of 
various plans for uniting similar industries, and the results, 
satisfactory on the whole, attending the disintegration of 
the Standard Oil and American Tobacco holding compa- 
nies were unmistakable signs of this change of sentiment. 
Whether, finally, the consumer is or is not to be benefited 
through lower prices by the disintegration of these big in- 
dustrial combinations remains to be seen. Business men 
are pretty well agreed that destructive competition such 
as existed twenty-five years ago cannot be restored under 
present-day conditions, and that to attempt to restore it 
would be as undesirable from the point of view of the 
consumer as from that of the manufacturer. 

The war between the United States and Spain, in 1898, 
which seemed to open the way for these epoch-making 
economic changes, was brought about by a variety of 



CAUSES OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN 249 

causes. The patience of the American people had been 
severely tried for many years by the inability of Spain to 
suppress the constantly recurring insurrections in Cuba. 
Their sense of justice, moreover, had been outraged by the 
cruel, not to say inhuman, methods to which the Spanish 
military authorities had resorted in order to recover and 
maintain their control of the island. It was natural also 
that the sympathy of Americans should be with the Cuban 
revolutionists who were trying to throw off the yoke of 
Spanish tyranny. Contemporary evidence is not wanting, 
however, to show that further diplomacy and a little more 
patience would have been sufhcient to induce Spain to 
yield to all of the essential demands which the United 
States government could reasonably have made, had it 
not been for the effect upon public opinion, first, of the 
blowing up, at Havana, of the battle-ship Maine, in Feb- 
ruary, with the consequent loss of two hundred and sixty 
lives, and, secondly, of the report of the naval board of 
inquiry to the effect that the originating cause of the dis- 
aster was an external mine. Since the wreck of the Maine 
was raised another board has reached a similar conclusion 
from somewhat different premises, and yet it seems as if 
the truth as to the ultimate cause of this catastrophe might 
always remain a subject of dispute among experts. 

President McKinley was not the type of man to throw 
cold water, in an emergency of this sort, upon the smoul- 
dering anger of his countrymen. He was a follower, not a 
leader, of public opinion, and it was easy for him to per- 
suade himself that the clamor for war with which the 
sensation-loving newspapers soon filled the air was the 
voice of the people and must be obeyed. The progress of 



250 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

the war revealed the hopeless inferiority of the Spaniards 
to the Americans in sea power, the destruction of the 
Spanish fleet at Manila by Admiral Dewey and of the 
Spanish cruisers at Santiago by Admiral Sampson's vessels 
leaving the Spanish government no alternative but to make 
peace. Throughout the war the sympathies of the Latin 
races of Europe were, not unnaturally, with Spain. From 
first to last, however, the United States enjoyed the novel 
sensation of having the moral support of England. For- 
getting the Venezuela affair, Englishmen, for the first time 
in history, seemed to take a certain sort of pride in the 
achievements, naval and military, of their American cous- 
ins. 

Two important military lessons were impressed upon 
the nation by the war. One was that typhoid fever was 
a much more deadly enemy to the American troops in the 
field than the Spanish regiments were. The other, growing 
out of the remarkable voyage of the battle-ship Oregon 
around South America, was the necessity of a canal across 
the Isthmus of Panama which would bring the Atlantic 
seaboard and the Pacific coast within easier and quicker 
communication. Recent advances in the science of pre- 
ventive medicine resulting in the discovery of an anti- 
typhoid serum are expected to go far toward solving one 
of these problems, while, as will appear later, the Panama 
Canal will solve the other. 

Influential opposition to the imperialistic policy embodied 
in the acquisition by the United States of distant depend- 
encies inhabited by alien races, under the terms of the 
treaty of Paris, developed immediately, especially in the 
East, so contrary was this result of the war to the theory 



252 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

of American destiny which had prevailed for more than a 
century. This opposition, moreover, increased in volume 
and in emphasis when American troops were used to sup- 
press the insurrection in Luzon of Aguinaldo and his Fil- 
ipino followers. If the problems presented by Porto Rico 
were comparatively simple, those growing out of the owner- 
ship and military control of the Philippine archipelago on 
the other side of the world, with its sixteen hundred islands, 
its area of land more than equal to that of New England, 
New York and New Jersey combined, and its population, 
savage, half-savage and civilized, of more than seven mill- 
ions, were regarded by many as anything but simple, and 
seemed likely to bring upon the United States heavy re- 
sponsibilities and to foreshadow serious complications with 
foreign powers for which there would be no compensating 
advantages. 

On the other hand, while it is undoubtedly true that the 
transfer of the Philippines, as Admiral ]\Iahan has pointed 
out, "not only was not an object of the war, but was ac- 
cepted with reluctance, under an unwilling sense of duty, 
as one of its unfortunate results," there existed throughout 
the country a feehng of pride, not unmixed with exhilara- 
tion, that the national boundaries had been thus broadened, 
and that henceforth the United States would of necessity 
take a place among the nations of the world and bear a 
share of the wider and larger responsibilities involved in 
its new position. China, in particular, as a field for com- 
mercial enterprise in which the United States would now 
not be without influence, gave to the possession of the 
Philippines a new significance which was emphasized when 
American troops were dispatched thither, first on the 



GENESIS OF THE PANAMA CANAL 253 

occasion of the Boxer uprising in 1900, and again in 191 2, 
when the revolution against the Manchu dynasty was in 
progress. Both of these expeditions were coincident with 
the enunciation of the poHcy of the United States, first by 
Secretary Hay in the McKinley administration and later 
by Secretary Knox in the Taft administration, in favor 
of the territorial integrity of China and the maintenance in 
China of the "open door" to the commerce of the world. 

An earlier step in this imperialistic policy had already 
been taken when in August, 1898, only a few weeks after 
the naval battle of Santiago, the Hawaiian Islands had been 
formally annexed to the United States by an act of Con- 
gress. This result had been preceded by a revolution in 
the islands through which the native monarchy had been 
overthrown and a repubhc established, the foreign element, 
in which Americans predominated, and the educated na- 
tives joining forces to this end. 

The ownership of these islands, to which a territorial 
form of government was given by Congress in 1900, and 
of the Philippines was a constant reminder of the strategic 
and commercial necessity for a canal across the Isthmus of 
Panama, the need of which had been so severely felt when 
the Oregon made its long journey to join the American fleet 
at Santiago, and President Roosevelt took up this well- 
nigh herculean labor with characteristic energy and self- 
confidence. The selection of the Panama in preference to 
the Nicaragua route was due chiefly to the discovery that 
the bankrupt French company founded by DeLesseps 
would sell its rights, its constructed work and its property, 
portable and otherwise, for what was regarded by the board 
of American engineers as a fair price, forty million dollars. 



254 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

Other advantages were: better harbors at either end of 
the canal, a shorter route for vesselS;, less liability to earth- 
quakes and lower cost of operation. Excavating was begun 
in 1907, and so rapid has been the progress of the work 
under the engineer-in-chief, Colonel Goethals, that the canal 
promises to be completed some time before the formal open- 
ing in 1915. Its cost, including the fortifications necessary 
for its defense, will exceed four hundred million dollars. 
Scarcely second in importance to this work as a feat of 
engineering under wellnigh ideal administrative conditions, 
has been the scientific application of modern sanitary meas- 
ures to tropical conditions of notorious unhcalthfulness, 
with results little short of marvellous as regards the free- 
dom from sickness and the general well-being of the hosts 
of laborers and officials engaged in the construction of the 
canal. What effects the canal will have upon the com- 
merce of the United States and of the world at large, only 
time can tell. 

True to its pledge to give independence to Cuba, the 
United States, in May, 1902, withdrew its troops from the 
island after they, in conjunction with the civil authorities, 
had restored order and had made the principal cities and 
towns safe as regards sanitary conditions — an illustration 
of good faith thought to be unique in the history of the 
dealings of powerful with weak nations in an age of terri- 
torial aggrandizement for commercial exploitation and for 
political prestige. Four years later an insurrection left 
the island without a government, and the United States 
was obliged, under the treaty provisions for intervention, 
to send troops to Cuba to restore order, to establish a pro- 
visional government and to organize and set in motion the 



256 BUSINESS EXPANSION AND IMPERIALISM 

machinery through which the Cubans themselves might 
form a new government that would be permanent. This 
done the American troops were again withdrawn. It was 
made clear, however, by President Roosevelt that if insur- 
rection became a habit with the Cubans the island would 
lose its independence. Twice President Taf t felt obliged 
to send notes of warning to the Cuban government, once, 
in the summer of 191 1, calling attention to the danger of 
extravagance in the management of the fmances of the 
republic, and again, early in 191 2, with reference to the 
activity of political agitators among the veterans of the 
war against Spain. Thus the fate of the new republic is 
still in the balance. 

Roosevelt the President proved himself to be as efKicient 
as a peacemaker as Roosevelt the soldier was energetic and 
aggressive in the war with Spain. For it was through his 
good offices that Russia and Japan were induced, in 1905, 
to make peace at Portsmouth, an instance of the increasing 
influence which the nation was acquiring in the affairs of 
the Far East; and three years earlier he had persuaded the 
railway operators and mine workers in Pennsylvania to 
settle their differences regarding wages and hours of labor 
by arbitration, thus bringing to an end the most serious 
strike that had ever occurred in the anthracite coal region. 
His restless energy, moreover, expended itself along many 
economic lines other than those already referred to, the 
main purpose of all of these efforts being to prevent the 
natural resources of the lands and waters of the country 
from falling into the hands of unscrupulous individuals and 
of greedy corporations, and to reclaim for the agricultural 
use of actual settlers the arid lands of the Far West by elab- 



ROOSEVELT'S TASK IN THIS PERIOD 257 

orate irrigation projects, the expense of which was met from 
the proceeds of the sale of pubHc lands. So varied and com- 
plex indeed were the problems which the economic and 
social changes of this period brought to the fore that it 
became necessary in 1903 to establish a new department 
of the government deahng with commerce and labor, to 
the secretary of which was given a seat in the cabinet. 

The commanding figure in this period of economic and 
social turmoil was that of Theodore Roosevelt, whose ser- 
vices to the nation promise to place him, in the perspective 
of time, high among the Presidents whose names are most 
honored by their countrymen. The emergency was one 
to call for a strong man, with sufficiently keen intelligence 
and a sufficiently high moral sense to understand the real 
issues which the trusts had raised and the dangers involved 
therein, and with sufficient courage, determination and 
strength of will to apply relentlessly the remedies neces- 
sary to bring the nation, in the fulness of time, back to 
sanity, moderation and fair deahng in business and public 
affairs and to a recognition and acceptance of the principle 
that in a democracy special privileges, outside the letter as 
well as the spirit of the law, are not for the rich and power- 
ful. That President Roosevelt was such a man and that 
he accompHshed this colossal task in the face of hostility 
and criticism which would have overwhelmed a man of less 
stern fibre, seems likely to be the verdict of history. 



XX 

LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

The inference might be drawn from the foregoing chap- 
ters that since the Civil War material interests had absorbed 
the entire energies of the American people. Such an in- 
ference, however, would be incorrect. There is no doubt 
that purely intellectual and aesthetic pursuits suffered by- 
reason of the superior attractiveness of the rich prizes which 
business and professional careers offered to the ambitious 
youth of the nation, in a period when the vast natural 
resources of the country were inviting development and 
when the material demands of a rapidly increasing popu- 
lation were creating numberless opportunities for the ac- 
quirement of wealth. Yet these pursuits were not wholly 
neglected. In the last forty years America has produced 
a few books, a number of paintings, some pieces of sculpture 
and many buildings which, it is not unreasonable to think, 
may give pleasure, intellectual or aesthetic or both, to 
generations to come. 

Of the books that have appeared in this period Mark 
Twain's Life on the Mississippi River and his Tom Sawyer 
and Huckleberry Finn have taken a high rank because of 
the vividness, truth, human sympathy and humor with 
which they portray life and character in the Mississippi 
Valley in the decades preceding the Civil War. The fame 
of Walt Whitman is greater abroad, especially in France, 
than it is among his own countrymen, who have thus far 

-^58 



HISTORY, SCHOLARSHIP AND CRITICISM 259 

failed to recognize in his verse the voice of a prophet of 
American democracy or the evidence of creative genius. 
He has an original force, however, that is still to be reck- 
oned with, and the final place, if any, which he is to occupy 
in American literature may remain in doubt a long time. 

The realization of the fact that the Civil War was the 
last act in the tragedy of slavery and ended an epoch of 
momentous dramatic interest in the life of the nation 
seemed to have the effect of turning the minds of many 
men to historical research. Mr. Rhodes, in his history of 
the United States from the compromise of 1850, and Henry 
Adams, in his brilliant narrative of the administrations of 
Jefferson and Madison, made enviable names for themselves, 
while the works of McMaster, H. H. Bancroft and Schouler 
contain much that will be of service to the historian of the 
future. Few if any writers on American history from the 
earliest times to the adoption of the Constitution have 
reached so wide a popular audience as has John Fiske, , 
whose philosophical cast of mind and whose clearness and 
simplicity of style in the exposition of abstruse subjects 
had already been revealed in his earlier Outlines of Cosmic 
Philosophy and in other books on different aspects of the 
theory of evolution, to which he made substantial original 
contributions. Professor Sloane, meanwhile, found conge- 
nial themes for noteworthy historical works in the Revo- 
lutionary and Napoleonic periods in France. 

Scholarship and criticism too have been enriched by the 
painstaking labors of a few men — Professor Child, through 
his edition of the Enghsh and Scottish ballads; Professor 
Lounsbury, through his illuminating works on Chaucer and 
about Shakespeare; Dr. Furness, through his Variorum 



2()o LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

Shakes l)carc; Professor James, through his contributions 
to psychology, remarkable at once for their imaginative 
originality and their extreme felicity of phrase. Admiral 
Mahan, by his exposition of the important part which sea 
power has played in the relations of nations, has made 
an important contribution to the philosophy of history, 
winning thereby for himself an international reputation. 
President Lowell's work on The Government of England has 
taken rank with Bryce's American Commonwealth for the 
thoroughness and soundness of its scholarship. Charac- 
terized by extraordinary subtlety of understanding and by 
a catholic and yet a discriminating taste, the four books 
which Mr. Brownell has published, French Traits, French 
Art, Victorian Prose Masters and American Prose Masters, 
have given him a commanding place in the small group of 
American critics of art and literature. Mr. Woodberry's 
books also, especially his Appreciation of Literature and his 
lectures on race power in literature called The Torch, reveal 
unusual breadth of view and rare penetration, and are of 
stimulating suggestiveness. 

It is significant, moreover, that Henry James felt obliged 
to expatriate himself in order to find a congenial atmos- 
phere in which to wTite his novels and stories. The con- 
clusion might fairly be drawn from this circumstance that 
imaginative literature requires other conditions for its 
development than those which have prevailed for the last 
thirty or forty years in the United States, and Mark Twain's 
books seem to make him the sole and distinguished excep- 
tion which proves the rule. A higher point has been 
reached in the short stories than in all but a very few of the 
novels of this period — by Bret Harte, for example, in three 



SHORT STORIES AND NOVELS 261 

or four of his sketches of life and character among the 
Argonauts of '49, who ought to have included just such 
types as he pictures, even if, as is charged, they did not; 
by Mr. Page in Marse Chan and Mch Lady; by Mr. Cable 
in Old Creole Days; and perhaps by Miss Jewett and Miss 
Wilkins in their sketches of New England village characters. 

Mr. Howells is at his best in The Rise of Silas Lapham 
and in A Hazard of Neiv Fortunes, possibly because in these 
two novels he seemed to be less conscious than elsewhere 
of the obhgations of his theory of realism. It was prob- 
ably inevitable that the application of this theory to the 
portrayal in fiction of the New England life and character 
of the 'seventies and 'eighties of the last century should 
produce somewhat disappointing results; and yet the high 
and serious purpose which has controlled Mr. Howells's 
long, varied and honorable literary career, as well as his 
consistently excellent craftsmanship throughout that ca- 
reer, entitle him to a foremost place among the novelists 
of this period. In sharp contrast to Mr. Howells's New 
England were the warmth and brilliancy of color, the spark- 
ling gayety and the romantic glamour of the picture of 
Creole Louisiana in the early years of the century which 
Mr. Cable drew in The Grandissimes. Mrs. Wharton's 
brilliant intellectual qualities and her extraordinary ver- 
satility, with her technical proficiency, make her by far 
the most interesting figure in American fiction at the pres- 
ent time, despite the lack of ideals and of human sym- 
pathy in the characters which she portrays. 

Other forms of imaginative literature have fared, under 
these conditions, even worse, poetry having languished 
notwithstanding the brave but only partially successful 



262 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

attemps of Lanier, Stoddard, Stedman, Aldrich and others 
to give it vitality and charm. Time indeed may prove 
that the Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley, has sung 
the simple joys and sorrows of his people in verse more 
enduring than that of any one of his contemporaries. 

Under the stimulus of the material prosperity of the 
country and despite the commercial atmosphere in which 
men like Sargent and Whistler found it impossible to work, 
the cultivation and practice of the line arts went on assid- 
uously in this period. The Philadelphia Exposition of 
1876 was a potent influence in arousing a popular interest 
in art matters. It was in this year that George Fuller 
exhibited the first collection of his pictures in Boston, and 
it was at about this time also that a group of young Ameri- 
can painters, returning with high ideals from Paris and 
Munich, organized the Society of American Artists and 
exerted a decided influence upon the technique of the art. 
It was in 1876 too that John La Farge began the task of 
providing a decorative scheme for the interior of Trinity 
Church in Boston — the virtual beginning of mural paint- 
ing in the United States. In the years that followed 
George Inness and Homer Martin produced some notable 
landscapes, while the work in different fields of men like 
Sargent, Whistler, La Farge, Vedder, Wyant and Winslow 
Homer was of a character to win for them a wide reputa- 
tion. The names of the men who have attained rank in 
sculpture are few. Ward, the pioneer in this art, was 
followed by Saint-Gaudens, probably the most distinguished 
of the small group; Warner, French, MacMon'.xes and 
Bartlett, several of whom are still alive and may win fur- 
ther honors. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURE 263 

Two important results affecting the development of the 
fine arts in the United States followed from the Columbian 
Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The dormant aesthetic 
sense of the people of the middle West was quickened into 
life and activity, and the lesson of the intimate relation of 
sculpture and of mural painting to architecture was im- 
pressed upon all sensitive observers. Since that time art 
museums have, been founded in all the large and in not a 
few of the smaller cities of the middle West, and art socie- 
ties with various aims have been organized without num- 
ber. Early in 191 2 an art museum costing half a milhon 
dollars was opened in Toledo, and Detroit and Minneapohs 
had similar projects well in hand. Nor is interest in art 
confined to the middle West ; it extends as far south as New 
Orleans and as far west as Los Angeles. In both of these 
cities plans are maturing for the founding of art museums. 

With the rapid growth of the population and with a 
corresponding increase in the needs, as well as in the wealth, 
of states, municipalities, corporations and public and pri- 
vate societies, it was inevitable that architecture should 
flourish in this era of activity and expansion. And this 
art owes not a little to Daniel H. Burnham, the chief archi- 
tect and director of works of the exposition at Chicago, 
who was responsible for the general scheme of the buildings, 
courts, lagoons, etc., the stately and beautiful effect of 
which left a deep and abiding impression upon all visitors, 
and the educational value of which was of the highest. 
The buildings, public and private, which have been erected 
in the principal cities of the country in the twenty years 
since the Chicago Exposition was held are monuments 
to the skill and taste of a remarkable group of men — 



264 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

McKim, Gilbert, White, Hastings, Post, Flagg, Cook, Sul- 
livan and Cram, to mention only a few of the many that 
might also be named, all of whom have shown themselves 
to be worthy successors to those leaders in the latter-day 
development of architecture in America, Richardson and 
Hunt. The growth of interest in mural painting naturally 
followed this activity in architecture; and in the last 
twenty-five years public buildings in nearly every part of 
the country have been enriched with paintings by the 
best-known artists of the period — La Farge, Blashfield, 
Sargent, Abbey, Simmons, Alexander, Cox, Turner, and 
Millet, to mention no others. 

The future, moreover, seems to be full of promise. For 
it is doubtful if in any other country or in any other age 
has there been so vast an expenditure of time, energy and 
money as in the United States during the last quarter of 
a century, having for its objects the cultivation of taste 
and of an appreciation of beauty and the training of the 
intelligence. The lavish generosity of American merchant 
princes in founding and endowing institutions devoted to 
education, philanthropy or art, has gone hand in hand 
with an equally lavish expenditure of millions of dollars 
for the enrichment of museums and collections, public 
and private, with treasures of all branches of art gathered 
from the four quarters of the globe. So general has this 
custom become that one can scarcely take up a morning 
newspaper without finding in it the record of some munifi- 
cent gift or bequest of this nature. 

The possession of wealth and of taste cultivated by 
foreign travel has made art collectors of not a few Ameri- 
can millionaires, who in the last twenty years, and more 



266 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

particularly in the opening decade of the present century, 
despoiled the private galleries of Europe of many of their 
choicest possessions. Such private collections as those of 
Mr. Morgan, Mr. Frick, Mr. Altman, Mrs. Havemeyer, 
and Mr. Huntington in New York; Mr. Johnson and Mr. 
Widener, of Philadelphia; Mr. Freer, of Detroit, and Mrs. 
Gardner, of Boston, to name only a few of those that 
might be included in such a list, are destined ultimately 
to find their way into public galleries and to exert an in- 
fluence upon the taste of the people that can scarcely be 
over-estimated. The extent of this influence may be in- 
ferred from the fact that in the year igii the attendance 
at the Art Institute of Chicago was more than 700,000. 
All schools of painting, to say nothing of other classes of 
art objects, are represented in these collections. They 
are especially rich in works by the Dutch masters, more 
than eighty examples of Rembrandt now being owned by 
American collectors and American art museums. 

Since the opening of the MetropoHtan Opera House in 
New York in 1883 interest in music has broadened greatly. 
As a result of this increased interest Boston, Chicago and 
Philadelphia, as well as New York and Brooklyn, have 
had regular opera seasons, while the Chicago company, in 
1911-1912, went to St. Paul and St. Louis for brief seasons, 
and also gave a few performances in Baltimore, Cleveland, 
Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. New Orleans 
meanwhile has enjoyed its annual season of French opera, 
which can almost be called indigenous. 

Not many years ago Boston, New York and Chicago 
were the only cities in the country maintaining perma- 
nent orchestras. Gradually similar organizations were 



MUSIC AND THE DRAMA 267 

established in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and several of the 
larger cities of the central states, notably Cincinnati, St. 
Paul, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Kansas City, while 
orchestras have been maintained for longer or shorter 
periods in various cities in the Pacific coast states, Port- 
land, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Few, if 
any, of these organizations have been self-supporting, but 
the public-spirited generosity of Mr. Higginson, of Boston, 
and of the men who meet the annual deficit of the opera 
in New York, has aroused a spirit of emulation in other 
cities, with the result that more good music, orchestral and 
operatic, is to be heard annually in the larger cities of the 
United States than can be heard anywhere save in two or 
three cities in Germany and perhaps in Paris. 

The drama, on the other hand, has lagged far behind 
music in this period. The substitution of the "star" 
system for the stock companies as they existed in the 
'eighties and 'nineties of the last century has brought about 
a decided deterioration in the character of the plays pro- 
duced as well as in the art of acting. Almost alone among 
native dramatists Augustus Thomas has pictured Ameri- 
can character and conditions with intelligence, insight, and 
humor, and with rare constructive skill. Some persons, 
moreover, of sanguine temperament find encouragement 
for the future in the work of several young playwrights 
with Harvard affiliations who have come to the fore in 
recent years. 

If much has been done since the Civil War to encourage 
the practice and the appreciation of the fine arts, more 
yet has been done to multiply in all directions the fa- 
cilities for popular and advanced education. The multi- 



268 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

millionaires of the country, largely self-educated men them- 
selves, have been foremost in this work. The pioneer 
among American philanthropists of this type was George 
Peabody, who left several millions to be devoted to the 
cause of education in the South. John D. Rockefeller is 
Mr. Peabody's legitimate successor, for one of the chief 
objects of the General Education Board, the various funds 
of which contributed by Mr. Rockefeller amount to more 
than $50,000,000, is the promotion of practical farm- 
ing and of high-school education in the southern states. 
The advancement of higher education throughout the 
country is also one of the purposes to which the General 
Education Board devotes its income, Mr. Rockefeller's 
interest in this work having l^een already abundantly 
shown by the millions which he has given, since it was 
founded in 1892, to the University of Chicago. 

It seems scarcely necessary to refer to Mr. Carnegie's 
benefactions to the cause of both popular and higher edu- 
cation, so well known are they. He has given nearly $60,- 
000,000 to build libraries, $22,000,000 to advance scientific 
research through the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 
$20,000,000 to build and equip the technical schools at 
Pittsburgh known as the Carnegie Institute, $15,000,000 
to provide retiring allowances for college professors, $10,- 
000,000 to further the cause of peace among nations, and 
a like sum to reward acts of heroism. 

This list, at the head of which stand the names of Mr. 
Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie, might be extended at length 
by reference to Mr. IMorgan's gifts to the Harvard Medical 
School, to Isaac C. Wyman's bequest to Princeton Uni- 
versity, to the Ranken gift of $3,000,000 to the Ranken 



2 70 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

Trade School of St. Louis, to Mr. Pulitzer's bequests to 
Columbia University for a school of journalism and for 
other objects, and to many ec[ually princely benefactions. 
The foregoing, however, will indicate in a general way the 
scale of really royal munificence upon which the facilities 
in this country for popular, technical and higher education 
have been and are still being enlarged and extended. 

At the foundation of these multifarious intellectual and 
aesthetic activities lie the public-school system of the 
nation and the institutions, public and private, for higher 
education. Few people have any adequate conception of 
the extent and the value of the educational machinery of 
the country, or of the cost of keeping this vast and com- 
plicated machinery in operation. The expense to the 
people of the single state of New York for educating its 
pupils in the year 191 1 was nearly $77,000,000. In the 
interval of thirty-nine years between i86g 1870 and 1908- 
1909 the average annual expenditure for educating a pupil 
in the public schools of the entire country increased from 
$12.71 to $31.65, representing an advance in the annual 
cost charge per capita of population from $1.64 to $4.45, 
the number of pupils enrolled increasing in this interval 
from 6,871,522 to 17,506,175. Meanwhile the value of the 
property devoted to the uses of the public schools grew 
from somewhat over $130,000,000 to nearly $968,000,000. 

In the field of higher education one finds that the num- 
ber of universities, colleges and technological schools from 
which the government received reports for the year ended 
June 30, 1910, was six hundred and two. Of these insti- 
tutions, states or municipalities controlled eighty-nine, 
while five hundred and thirteen were under the manage- 



INDUSTRIAL AND TRADE SCHOOLS 271 

ment of private corporations. Colleges for women, which 
forty years ago could be counted on the fingers of one 
hand, have multiplied until now they number more than a 
hundred in the United States. The aggregate enrolment 
in the six hundred and two institutions for higher educa- 
tion reporting in 1910 to the government, all departments 
— preparatory, collegiate, graduate and professional, being 
included, was 301,818. The value of the grounds and 
buildings owned by these institutions was estimated at 
about $280,000,000; their productive funds amounted to 
nearly $260,000,000, yielding an annual income of over 
$11,500,000; and their total annual receipts from all 
sources were over $80,000,000. 

The most noticeable tendency of recent years in the 
field of education has been in the direction of industrial 
and trade schools similar to those existing throughout 
Germany, the usual distinction being that industrial schools 
deal with the uses and products of machinery and trade 
schools with the use of tools. This tendency has revealed 
itself not only in the pubHc schools in cities and towns 
throughout the country, but in the institutions of higher 
learning in the middle West where there has been a decided 
drift away from the humanities and toward studies of a 
practical character, especially scientific agriculture. At 
the end of 191 1 in the single state of Minnesota there were 
no fewer than thirty agricultural high-schools receiving 
state aid to the extent of $2,500 each yearly, while there 
were twenty other high-schools maintaining courses in 
agriculture without state aid. Other neighboring states 
are following the example of Minnesota in establishing 
agricultural schools, the movement having the powerful 



272 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

support of the various bankers' associations. Boston has 
had in successful operation for a number of years a com- 
mercial high-school modelled on those to be found in every 
large German city, the purposes of which are to instruct 
young men in modern languages, in international business 
finance and business usage, and in the economical and 
eflficient management of large industrial plants. High- 
schools of this type are sure to multiply when their service- 
ableness becomes more widely known. 

The causes of this eagerness on the part of the people to 
acquire instruction in practical pursuits are to be found, 
of course, in the higher prizes which expanding industries 
and trades offer to trained minds and skilled hands, and 
in the increasing difficulty of securing such prizes, under 
modern competition, without this special training and this 
exceptional skill. In time the effects of this movement 
may be to modify materially the aims and methods of the 
public-school system throughout the country. 

Among the institutions of higher learning in the East the 
old ideals have been fairly well maintained. Athletic sports 
in the colleges, however, have everywhere assumed more 
and more importance each year. Foot-ball has almost 
ceased, in the judgment of many observers, to be a sport, 
there being few more serious pursuits, outside, perhaps, the 
Church and the Bench. The spirit of devotion to Alma 
Mater and of loyalty to college traditions, which these 
young barbarians carry to a foot-ball contest, is as lofty 
and almost as awe-inspiring as was the spirit of patriotism 
which Leonidas and his Spartans bore to Thermopylae. 
The American temperament, which accomplishes wonder- 
ful results when working in other channels, — as witness 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION 273 

Commander Peary's success in reaching the North Pole in 
the spring of 1909, after repeated faikires in former years, — 
seems to be the chief obstacle in the way at present of a 
more moderate and a saner treatment of this particular 
sport. 

With the increase in population and wealth throughout 
the country, the size of the classes in the larger universi- 
ties has doubled and even trebled in thirty years, involving 
marked changes in the relations of students with each 
other and with the officers of instruction. That these 
changes have been altogether beneficial in their effects is 
by no means certain. The friends of the smaller colleges 
claim for them advantages which cannot easily be dis- 
proved. 

Thus it appears, finally, that the really important con- 
tributions which the people of the United States have made 
to civilization have been not so much of an intellectual as 
of a political, economic or religious nature. They were 
summarized by President Eliot of Harvard, in 1896, as 
"peace-keeping, religious toleration, the development of 
manhood suffrage, the welcoming of new-comers and the 
diffusion of well-being." Perhaps in the course of another 
hundred years there may be evolved an American race- 
mind, to use Mr. Woodberry's phrase, formed from the 
fusion of the native stock with the ItaUan, Slavic, Jew- 
ish, Scandinavian and German immigrants to whom this 
country has accorded a welcome, which will express itself 
in literature of an enduring character. If one would seek 
an expression of the American race-mind of the last quar- 
ter of a century, he must look for it in the irregular sky- 
line of the towering buildings in lower New York; in the 



274 LITERATURE, FINE ARTS AND EDUCATION 

colossal works of the Panama Canal; in the boldly pro- 
jected railway that spans the coral islands from the main- 
land of Florida to Key West; in the great Roosevelt dam 
in Arizona which confines the waters of the Salt River in a 
reservoir of enormous capacity for irrigation purposes and 
for the generation of power; and in monumental public 
buildings like the Pennsylvania Railway Station in New 
York, in which architectural and engineering problems are 
solved in combination. 



XXI 

SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

With all the advantages, therefore, of youth and of the 
activity, energy and industry that are characteristic of 
youth, of vast natural resources and of a quickening intelli- 
gence, the people of the United States face the future with 
confidence and hopefulness. During the last forty years 
the growth of the population of the country, due partly to 
natural causes and partly to the foreigner's zeal for poHti- 
cal and religious freedom and for industrial opportunity, 
has been remarkable: from thirty-eight and a half mill- 
ion in 1870 to fifty million in 1880; to sixty-two and a half 
million in 1890; to seventy-six million in 1900; and to 
ninety-two milHon in 1910. These people are distributed 
over forty-eight states having a total area of more than 
three million square miles, the centre of population being 
in the city of Bloomington, Ind. If the inhabitants of 
the outlying dependencies of the nation, the Philippines, 
Hawaii, Porto Rico, Alaska and Guam, be included in 
the enumeration, it will be found that in 19 10 more than a 
hundred million people were living under the flag of the 
United States. The total wealth of the nation in 1910, 
as estimated, with the usual reservations, by the chief 
statistician of the Bureau of the Census, Joseph A. Hill, 
was $142,000,000,000, figures that are too big to be com- 
prehensible, except, perhaps, in comparison with the total 
wealth of Great Britain, which was estimated by the Lon- 

27s 



276 SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

don Economist to have been approximate!}' $68,000,000,000 
in 1909, less than hah" that of the United States in the 
fohowing year. 

Of the people in the United States more than one-third 
were found by the census of 1910 to be either of foreign 
Ijirth or of foreign parentage. In New England and in the 
middle Atlantic states this foreign element constituted 
considerably more than a half of the entire population. 
The foreign-born whites in the middle Atlantic states in- 
creased in the years from 1900 to 19 10 more than twice as 
fast as did the native whites. The total number of immi- 
grants who arrived in the country during the decade was 
heavy, nearly nine million; and yet, owing to the return 
migration, especially following the panic of 1907, and to 
deaths, the net increase in the foreign-born population 
was only a little over three million, and the percentage of 
foreign-born whites in the population was found to be no 
greater in 1910 than it was in 1870. 

These immigrants came for the most part from central 
and southeastern Europe and from southern Italy. The 
south Itahans, whom the immigration authorities differ- 
entiate racially from those who come from north of Rome, 
the Hebrews and the Poles made up the most numerous 
groups. Then came, in order of numbers, the Germans, 
Scandinavians, Irish and English; and, after them, the 
Slovaks, north Italians, Magyars, the Croats and Serbs 
and the Greeks. The races that sent the largest percen- 
tages of their populations to the United States were the 
Hebrew, from western Russia, Poland and Austria-Hun- 
gary; the Slovaks, driven from northern Hungary by the 
persecution of the Magyars who regard them and treat 



FOREIGN AND NATIVE ELEMENTS 277 

them as an inferior race; and the Croats and Serbs, from 
the region bordering on the northern Adriatic. 

The majority of the more than nine million immigrants 
who came to America between 1880 and 1900 settled in 
Minnesota, the Dakotas, Michigan, Wisconsin and in other 
states of the middle and far West, attracted by the farming 
opportunities which the virgin soil of this region presented. 
Since 1900, however, the tide has set toward the indus- 
trial centres of the New England and the middle Atlantic 
states, the children of earlier immigrants showing a dis- 
position, however, to migrate to the north central states. 
As a result of this tendency toward the manufacturing 
towns, practically a third of the white population in Rhode 
Island in 1910 was foreign-born. Massachusetts, New 
York, Connecticut, North Dakota and Minnesota were 
not far behind Rhode Island, with percentages of foreign- 
born whites varying from nearl}- a third to slightly more 
than a quarter of the population. When, however, the 
number of those born in the United States of foreign parent- 
age was added to the number of foreign-born whites, it was 
found that in no fewer than thirteen states this foreign 
element was in the majority. In fact, this foreign element 
constituted nearly three-quarters of the entire population 
of Minnesota and of North Dakota, nearly or quite two- 
thirds of the population of Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut and New York, and more than half 
the population of New Jersey, Michigan, South Dakota, 
Montana, Utah and Illinois. In twenty-nine states, how- 
ever, more than half the population consisted of native- 
born whites of native parentage; and in twelve states this 
native element represented more than two-thirds of the 



2 78 SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

population. West Virginia, in which no less than eighty- 
five and three-tenths per cent of the white population was 
of native stock, had the distinction of standing at the head 
of this list, the other states being Kentucky, Oklahoma, 
Indiana, New Mexico, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Ar- 
kansas, Maine, North Carolina and Texas. 

The magnet that attracted these millions of immigrants 
in the present century was the American factory, iron, 
steel, and similar mills being, of course, included in this 
generic term. Under the stimulus as well as the shelter of 
the protective tariff the growth of these manufacturing 
interests in the United States has been remarkable. Half 
a century ago the value for a single year of the finished 
products of all the factories of the country was consid- 
erably less than two billion dollars; for the year 1909 this 
value had increased to more than twenty and a half bilUon 
dollars. Fifty years ago the annual wages paid to work- 
men in American factories amounted to a total of less than 
four hundred million dollars; for the year 1909 they came 
to nearly three and a half billion dollars. At the head 
of the fist of manufacturing states stands New York. Ar- 
ranged in the order of the relative value of their man- 
ufactured products for the year 1909, the twelve states 
following New York were Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massa- 
chusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, 
Missouri, California, Connecticut and Minnesota. These 
thirteen states produced about three-quarters in value 
of all the manufactures of the entire country, increasing 
their products in five years in quantities varying from 
nearly a third in the case of Missouri to not far from two- 
thirds in the case of Michigan. The feature of this array 



MANUFACTURES AND FARMING INTERESTS 279 

which possesses the greatest significance is to be found in 
the development of manufactures in the central states 
which, twenty-five years ago, were devoted almost exclu- 
sively to agriculture. And a further illustration of this 
tendency is revealed in the fact that in five years the 
capital invested in manufactures was more than doubled 
in North Dakota and Oklahoma and nearly doubled in 
Kansas. 

Those economists who maintain that the manufactur- 
ing industries of the country have been built up in the last 
fifty years at the expense of other interests, and especially 
of farming, are able to cite not a few facts in support 
of their contention. Superficially considered the farming 
interests of the country seem to be in the highest degree 
prosperous. The figures of the government relating to 
farming are, in truth, so big as to be beyond the power of 
the imagination to grasp. The total value, for example, 
of farm lands and buildings more than doubled in the ten 
years from 1900 to 1910, having reached at the latter date 
the stupendous total of more than $34,500,000,000. The 
value of the farm lands even in the arid and semi-arid 
regions of the far West increased more than threefold in 
this interval, the result partly of irrigation and partly of 
natural development. The values, too, placed upon the 
various crops seem to those unacquainted with the facts 
almost beyond behef . The value of the corn harvested in 
191 1, corn having dethroned cotton and having become 
king in America of all the products of the soil, was over 
$1,500,000,000; of the cotton, more than $750,000,000; of 
the hay, nearly $700,000,000; of the wheat, about $543,- 
000,000; of the oats, nearly $415,000,000, and so on. Ac- 



28o SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

cording to the estimates of the Department of Agriculture 
the value of all the farm products of the year 191 1, in- 
cluding cattle, meats and dairy products, reached the 
incomprehensible total of not far from $8,500,000,000. 

These figures, impressive as they are, do not, however, 
tell the whole story. In the first place, while improve- 
ments and additional acreage brought under cultivation 
will account for a certain portion of the enormous ad- 
vance in the values attached to farm lands and buildings 
in the decade, one of the leading causes of this advance was 
the general appreciation of land values which, of course, 
added nothing to the real economic wealth of the country. 
Then, again, farming as an industry failed to hold its own 
with the growth of the population of the country during 
this period. From 1900 to 19 10 the population increased 
twenty-one per cent, while the percentage of the popula- 
tion engaged in farming decreased from thirty-five to thirty- 
two. Moreover, the percentage of improved farm lands, 
instead of increasing proportionally in the decade, as it 
should have done, actually declined from five and a half 
to five and two-tenths per capita of population. In the 
same period the number of wage-earners in American fac- 
tories increased about forty per cent. In other words, 
while the growth of manufactures was about twice as rapid 
as the increase in population, agriculture failed signally 
to keep pace with that increase. 

The same tendencies, from the field to the factor}-, from 
agriculture to manufactures, are observable in Europe and 
especially in Germany, and are due to the mighty struggle, 
silent but constant, which is going on among the most 
progressive nations for industrial and commercial suprem- 



1 






^ 


=M*-^ 


r— ^^ 






=^==^:^r ' J£^ffWK!M!^P! 






1^^^:.. 




TWO VIEWS OF A GIANT HARVESTER, AS USED IN CALIFORNIA. 
Cuts, threshes and sacks grain at the rate of from 1,500 to 1,800 sacks a day. 



282 SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

acy. The effects of the unprecedented industrial expan- 
sion and of the comparative neglect of agriculture in the 
United States have shown themselves in greatly decreased 
exports and in materially increased imports of foodstuffs, 
changes so pronounced in character as to be accepted by 
economists as in themselves a sufficient explanation of the 
high prices that prevail for these commodities. In the 
twelve years, for example, from 1900 to 191 1, inclusive, 
exports from the United States of breadstuffs declined from 
$251,000,000 to $136,000,000, and of meats and dairy prod- 
ucts from $187,000,000 to $136,000,000. In the same 
period the imports into the country of these foodstuffs 
increased respectively from $2,000,000 to $15,000,000 and 
from $3,000,000 to $14,000,000 in value. Interpreted, 
these facts mean that the consumers of foodstuffs in the 
United States have multiphed so much more rapidly in 
recent years than the producers of these commodities, that 
each season there is a smaller surplus for export and a 
greater demand for foreign supplies. 

The only remedies for this condition of affairs arc in- 
creased farm acreage or improved farming methods. Appar- 
ently there is ample room for both remedies to be applied. 
For the single state of Minnesota, which one is apt to think 
of as a huge granary, had, in 191 1, no fewer than forty-five 
million acres of good farming land awaiting cultivation, — 
more than twice as much as was under the plough. Gov- 
ernment experts, moreover, assert that American farmers 
should produce two, and might produce three, bushels of 
corn where they now produce one, the average for the 191 1 
crop having been less than thirty bushels to the acre. The 
same defective methods also are in use in the cultivation of 



COAL, IRON AND OTHER MINERALS 283 

potatoes, the average yield of which per acre has declined 
steadily in recent years — from one hundred and six bush- 
els in 1909 to about eighty-one bushels in 191 1. 

Next in importance to the agricultural are the mineral 
resources of the country, from which vast stores of wealth 
are derived each year. Arranged in the order of their 
value for the year 19 10, the principal mineral products 
were coal, iron, clay, copper, petroleum, gold, stone, natu- 
ral gas, cement and lead. In the last few years the quan- 
tity of coal mined in the United States has been in the 
neighborhood of half a billion tons annually, the proportion 
of bituminous to anthracite being approximately five and 
a half to one. The value of this coal at the mines would 
be considerably over $600,000,000. As the production of 
iron is sometimes cited as an index of the industrial posi- 
tion of a country, it is perhaps worthy of note that in 191 1 
the quantity produced in the United States was more than 
23,500,000,000 tons as against less than 15,500,000,000 tons 
for Germany and about 10,000,000 tons for Great Britain. 
The United States doubled its output of iron in the eight 
years from 1882 to 1890, and, in the thirteen years fol- 
lowing, the output was again doubled. After 1903, owing 
to the increased demand from industrial plants, the pro- 
duction of iron advanced with great rapidity and with 
occasional marked recessions. The growth of production 
in Germany proceeded meanwhile more slowly but more 
regularly, while in Great Britain it remained practically 
stationary. In 191 1 the United States produced two-thirds 
of the world's supply of petroleum, about 200,000,000 
barrels, of which perhaps 73,000,000 barrels came from 
California wells. Of the gold mined in the world in 1910, 



284 SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

estimated by the director of the United States ]\Iint to 
have been about $455,000,000 — less in vakic, In- the way, 
than the corn or the cotton or the hay or the wheat crop 
of the United States alone in the single year 191 1 — • 
American mines, including those in Alaska, yielded not far 
from $100,000,000. 

The coal and iron mines of northern Alabama, Georgia 
and Tennessee, with the estabhshment of textile, cotton- 
seed oil and other industries, and with the adoption of a 
more diversified range of farming, have brought to the 
South, in the last thirty years, a degree of prosperity nearly 
if not fully proportionate to that enjoyed by other parts 
of the country. Great tracts of rich land in Louisiana, 
Mississippi and Arkansas have been reclaimed by drain- 
age and made available for agricultural uses. Throughout 
this region corn is replacing cotton as the staple crop. In 
all parts of the South, moreover, the people, through varied 
manufactures and diversified farm products, have become 
independent of the North, and have at the same time 
acquired a financial and economic position of far solider 
strength than any they ever occupied. Important results, 
political and social as well as economic, seem likely to 
follow from these changes. As one result, for instance, of 
the development of manufacturing industries, sentiment 
in many parts of the South has at last become friendly 
to the principle underlying a protective tariff. The great 
need of the South is immigration. Northern capital in 
large amounts has gone into the South in the last twenty 
years. Foreign immigrants, however, continue to show 
the same unwillingness to compete as laborers with negroes 
that they showed before slavery was abolished, and how 



286 SOURCES OF THE NATIONS WE.\LTH 

to overcome this prejudice is one of the problems that 
slavery has bequeathed to the South. 

One of the important American industries not hereto- 
fore included in this general summary, in which the South 
is the leader, is the fishing business. The centre of the 
fisheries of the Atlantic coast in 1908, according to a special 
census taken for that year, was in Chesapeake Bay, fully 
forty per cent of the total of ninety-four thousand fisher- 
men hailing from Maryland and Virginia. If North Caro- 
lina and Florida were to be included, it would be found 
that these four southern states possessed not far from two- 
thirds of the men engaged in this industry, Massachusetts 
and Maine contributing only about one-tenth. The value 
of the fisheries of the country in that year was more than 
fifty million dollars, a single variety of shell-fish, oysters, 
representing nearly a third of this total. 

In comparison with the foregoing aspects of the enor- 
mously valuable domestic trade in the United States, 
among the ninty-two million people who, in 19 10, consti- 
tuted the "home market," the foreign trade of the coun- 
try seems almost insignificant. The great bulk of the ex- 
ports from the United States, consisting, of course, of the 
surplus products which the people of the country cannot 
consume, is composed of breadstuff s, meats and dairy 
products, manufactures and raw materials for manufact- 
ures, like cotton and copper, and various forms of petro- 
leum. The total exports for the year 191 1 amounted to 
somewhat over $2,000,000,000 in value; the imports, to 
about s$ 1, 500,000,000. If, however, these figures be placed 
alongside the total values of the farm products, the mines 
and the manufactures for the year, the relative unimpor- 



EXPORTS OF MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS 287 

tance of the foreign trade of the country becomes at once 
apparent. 

The value, for example, of the manufactures ready for 
use which were exported from the United States in 191 1 
was probably less than four per cent of the total value of 
the manufactures of the country for that year. The most 
important of these manufactures were the products of the 
iron and steel mills; and yet in 19 10, the latest year for 
which comparative figures are available, the United States 
was far behind its two chief competitors in this profitable 
branch of trade. The values of the exports of manu- 
factured iron and steel in that year for the three leading 
nations were, approximately, $377,000,000 for the United 
Kingdom, $348,000,000 for Germany, and $232,000,000 
for the United States. Higher general cost of production 
in the United States, due to wages and to other factors, 
prevented American iron and steel mills from meeting 
German and British competition in many lines of this 
valuable international trade. The greatest encouragement 
for the future, however, is to be found in the steady, if slow, 
increase, despite the relative high cost of production, in 
the exports of American iron and steel, these exports hav- 
ing more than doubled in value in the decade from 1901 
to 1 91 1. Less than one- tenth of all of these exports and 
imports for the fiscal year 191 1 were carried in vessels fly- 
ing the American flag, the profits of more than nine-tenths 
of this carrying trade going to foreign shipping. 

In conclusion, the problems which confront the people 
of the United States are neither few nor easy of solution. 
They are, broadly speaking, of three classes: First, eco- 
nomic questions of national concern relating to the en- 



288 SOURCES OF THE NATION'S WEALTH 

couragement of agriculture and the education of farmers; 
to the government supervision and regulation, especially 
as regards the issue of capital and the enforcement of pub- 
licity, of corporations engaged in interstate commerce; to 
the readjustment of the tariff schedules, and perhaps of 
the wage rate, so as to permit American manufacturers to 
sell their surplus products in foreign markets at a profit; 
and to the revival of the American merchant marine in 
order that a larger share of the international carrying trade 
may be secured for United States vesesls. 

In the second class are the new political ideas toward 
which the people of the middle West and of the far west- 
ern states have shown themselves to be rather more hos- 
pitable than the more conservative people of the East. 
These new ideas include not only those devices for remed}"- 
ing some of the defects, real or imagined, of representative 
government, the initiative, the referendum and the recall, 
but also direct nominations and preferential primaries for 
Presidential nominees. The main purpose of all of these 
novel expedients is to restore the rule of the people; to 
enable the people to express and to carry out their will 
regarding candidates, legislation, and tenure of office di- 
rectly instead of through delegated authority. Less radi- 
cal in character than these political innovations have 
been the experiments in many parts of the country with 
the commission form of government for cities, along the 
line of the plan first put into successful oj^eration in Gal- 
veston, no fewer than two hundred cities, in thirty-four of 
the forty-eight states of the Union, having adopted this 
form of government by the spring of 191 2. And mean- 
while the movement in favor of giving votes to women has 



PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE 289 

made such progress in the far West as to encourage its sup- 
^ porters to believe that only time will be necessary to con- 
vince the people of the central and eastern states of its 
justice and wisdom. 

Not the least important, moreover, of the questions that 
press for solution are those affecting, in the third place, 
the relations of capital, labor and society in general. Fore- 
most among these questions is the suppression of crimes 
of violence on the part of organized labor. Others relate 
to such matters as employer's liabihty, the prohibition of 
child labor in factories, the safeguarding of hfe in extra- 
hazardous employments like mining and the operation of 
railroads, and the maintenance of hygienic conditions for 
laborers of both sexes. 

Difficult of solution as some of these problems may seem, 
they are no more formidable in size and are far less dis- 
couraging in character than those with which the men of 
forty years ago found themselves confronted when scan- 
dalous dishonesty prevailed in pubhc hfe, when municipal 
extravagance and corruption were wide-spread and brazen, 
and when the delusion of fiat money was running riot 
throughout a large part of the country. And, to go back 
stih further, how insignificant they seem, even when taken 
together, compared with the mighty problem of saving 
the very life of the nation which the immortal Lincoln, 
with patience, courage and infinite faith in the American 
people whom he knew so well, faced in the spring of 'sixty- 
one! 



INDEX 



Abbey, Edwin A., 264. 
Abercrombie, General Sir Robert, 

45- 

Adams, Charles Francis, United 
States minister to England, 194, 
IQ5; his Studies Military and Dip- 
lomatic, 203. 

Adams, Henry, quoted, 107, 119; 

259- 
Adams, President John, 79, 95, 100, 

107. 
Adams, Samuel, his effective work 

for the colonies, 65, 66, 68. 
Agricultural resources of the United 

States, 150, 279, 280-283. 
Aguinaldo, General Emilio, 252. 
Aix la Chapelle, treaty of, 44. 
Alabama, the, Confederate cruiser, 

221. 
Alaska, purchase of, 233; area and 

products of, 234. 
Aldrich, Nelson W., 226, 233. 
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 262. 
Alexander, John W., 264. 
Alien and Sedition laws, 99, 100. 
Altman, Benjamin, 266. 
America, first appearance in print 

of the name, 11. 
American Tobacco Company case, 

the, 240, 246, 248. 
Ames, Oakes, 219. 
Amherst, General Jeffery, 45. 
Andros, Sir Edmund, 32. 
Anti-Federalists, the, 94. 
Appomattox Court House, Lee's sur- 
render at, 199. 
Architecture, development of, in 

America, 263, 264. 
Armada, the Spanish, destruction of, 

20, 21. 



Arnold, Benedict, treason of, 75, 76. 

;\rt, museums, 263; collectors, 264, 
266. 

Astor, John Jacob, and the develop- 
ment of the fur trade, iii. 

Athletic sports in the colleges, 272. 

Aviles, Pedro Menendez de, massa- 
cre of Huguenots in Florida by, 16; 
founder of St. Augustine, 18. 

Babcock, Orville E., charge against, 
216, 217. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, causes of rebellion 
of, 32. 

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, discovery 
of Pacific Ocean by, 12. 

Baldwin, Mathias, 130. 

Baltimore, the Lords, government 
of Maryland by, 28, 51. 

Bancroft, George, 156; his History 
of the United Slates, 165. 

Bancroft, H. H., 259. 

Banks, General N. P., 192. 

Banks and banking, 139, 192. 

Barbary pirates, the, 112, 114. 

Barlow, Joel, 112. 

Barnard, Judge, 216. 

Barras, Count de, French fleet under, 
joins that of De Grasse, 79. 

Barre, Colonel, 59. 

Bartlett, Paul W., 262. 

Belknap, William W., forced to re- 
sign, 217. 

Bell, Alexander Graham, and the 
telephone, 238. 

Benjamin, Judah P., 183. 

Berkeley, Sir William, governor of 
Virginia, 32, i^^. 

Blaine, James G., and railway cor- 
porations, 219, 220. 



291 



2Q2 



INDEX 



Bland-Allison hill, the, 230. 

Blashfield, Edwin H., 264. 

Bonhomme Rir/iard, the, 80, 195. 

Boston massacre, the, 59. 

Braddock, General Edward, defeated 
at Fort T)uf|ucsnc, 45. 

Bradford, William, governor of Plym- 
outh colony, 2O. 

Brandywine, battle of the, 72. 

Brice, Calvin S., 225, 226, 227. 

Brock, General Sir Isaac, 124. 

Brooks, Preston, assault of, ui)on 
Sumner, 180, iSi. 

Brown, John, his raid upon Harper's 
Ferry, 180, 181. 

Brown, Nicholas, Rift to Rhode Isl- 
and College, 58. 

Brown University founded, 58. 

Brownell, William C, quoted, 159, 
165; the works of, 260. 

Bryan, William J., 227, 232, 243. 

Bryant, William Cullen, his Thana- 
topsis, 155, i()i; [)(K't and jour- 
nalist, 161, 162. 

Bryce, James, quotcfl, 03 ; his .1 Dicr- 
ican Commomc'call/i. 2O0. 

Buchanan, President James, 176, 
185, 187, 1S8. 

Buell, General Don Carlos, 190. 

Bunker Hill, battle of, 69. 

Bunyan, John, 30. 

Burgoyne, General John, 72, 74, 75. 

Burke, Edmund, 59. 

Burnham, Daniel II., Director of 
Works of the Chicago Ex|)ositi()n, 
263. 

Burnside, General A. E., 188, 180. 

Burr, Aaron, 105. 

Byron, Lord, his influence on Ameri- 
can letters, 156. 

Cable, George W., 261. 

Cabot, John and Sebastian, voyages 

of, 10. 
Calhoun, John Caldwell, 120; and 

the slave question, 175, 183, 184. 
California, its independence won 

from Mexico, 136; discovery of 

gold in, 136. 



Canals, 127, 128, 130, 253. 
Cardozo, Judge, 216. 
Carnegie, Andrew, gifts of, 268. 
Carolina colonies, the, 29, 52. 
Cartier, Jacques, voyages of, 13, 16. 
Cavalier migration to X'irginia, 26. 

-7) 53- 

Census, of iSoo, 103, 104; of 1810. 
116; of 1910, 276. 

Channing, William Ellcry, 157. 

Champlain, Samuel de, 16; char- 
acter of, 35, 36; Quebec founded 
bj', 36; e.\[ilorations of, 38; death 
of, 38; 40. 

Charles I, king of England, 26, 20. 

42, 47- 
Charles Y, I'lmperor, 12, 14, 18. 
Chase, Salmon P., 178, 212. 
Chatham, I^arl of, see Pitt. 
Chesapeake, the, 122, 123. 
Child, Francis J., 259. 
China, influence of the United States 

in, 252, 253. 
City government, the Gaheston 

]jlan of, 288. 
Civil service, reforms in, 236. 
Civil War, the, 127, 156, 170, 187 

el seg.; cost of, 203; numbers and 

losses in, 203-206; results of, 206; 

conditions after, 208 et seq.; 259. 
Clark, William, ex[)e(lilion of, loq, 

no. III. 

Cla}', Henry, 120, 138, 169. 

Clay's Comjiromise of 1850, 175. 

Clermonl, the, 112. 

Cleveland, President Grover, 139, 
225, 226, 227, 231; and the Mon- 
roe Doctrine, 233, 234, 235; sec- 
ond administration of, 236. 

Clinton, General Sir Henry, 72, 74, 

. 75, 7'>- 

Coal, 103; outjjut of, in Lehigh \'al- 
ley, 135; anthracite coal strike, 
256; production of, 283. 
Colfax, Schuyler, 219. 
Collins, Edward K., 147, 148. 
Columbia, the, Captain Gray's ship, 

I 10, 1 I T. 

Columbia University founded, 58. 



INDEX 



293 



Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 

263. 
Columbus, Christopher, voyages of, 
5-8, 12; death of, 8, 12. 

Confederation, Articles of, the de- 
fects of, 86, 87; Maryland's re- 
fusal to accept, 88; 89, 90, 94. 

Confederation, the New England, 
84. 

Connecticut colon_v, the, 48, 84. 

Conservation of public resources, 
256, 257. 

Constitution, the. United States frig- 
ate, 122, 140, 195. 

Constitution, the federal, 88; the 
framers of, 92; a remarkable doc- 
ument, 92, 93; debates on, in state 
conventions, 94; ratified by all the 
states 94, 95. 

Constitutional Convention, the, 
called, 91; its members, 92, con- 
troversies in, 93; important ques- 
tions settled by compromise, 93, 
94- 

Continental Congress, first, 64, 65, 
86. 

Conway, Thomas, leader in conspir- 
acy against Washington, 81. 

Cook, Captain, no. 

Cook, Walter, 264. 

Cooke, Jay, & Company, 219. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, his Pre- 
caution, 155; other novels of, 157, 
158; his characteristics as a writer, 
158, 162. 

Cornwallis, Lord Charles, 70; de- 
feated at Yorktown, 76, 78. 

Coronado, Francisco Vazquez, ex- 
pedition of, 13. 

Cortes, Hernando, conquest of Mex- 
ico by, 13. 

Cotton, mills established, 102; ex- 
ports of, 115, 116; production of, 
ij8; 193. 

Cox, Kenyon, 264. 

Cram, Ralph A., 264. 

Credit Mobilier, the, 219. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 30. 

Cuba, independence of, 254, 256. 



Cunard, Samuel, and the British 
transatlantic service, 146. 

Dana, Richard Henry, his Two Years 
before the Mast, 161. 

Dartmouth College founded, 58. 

Davis, Jefferson, 180; elected Presi- 
dent of the Confederate States of 
America, 184; 19S, 200; character 
and temperament of, 202. 

Dawes, Henry L., 219. 

Deane, Silas, 74. 

Declaration of Independence adopt- 
ed, 70. 

Deerfield, Mass., the massacre at, 44. 

Delaware and Hudson Canal, the, 
128. 

Delaware colony, the, 52. 

Democratic party, the, 137, 138, 
182, 198, 199, 212, 214, 221; and 
the tariff, 224 et seq. 

De Soto, Hernando, expedition of, 

13, 14- 
De Vaca, Cabeza, wanderings of, 13, 

14. 
Dewey, Admiral George, 250. 
Dinwiddle, Robert, governor of Vir- 
ginia, 50, SI. 
Douglas, Stephen A., author of the 

Kansas-Nebraska act, 176, 177; 

debates with Lincoln, 180, 182. 
Drake, Sir Francis, voyages of, 13, 18. 
Drama, the, stagnation in, 267. 
Dred Scott case, the, 180, 181, 182. 
Dutch, the, occupation of New Neth- 

erland, 27, 28, 34. 
Duquesne, Fort, Braddock defeated 

at, 45; taken b}' the English, 45. 

Early, General Jubal A., 198. 

Economist, London, cited, 276. 

Edison, Thomas A., 238. 

Edmunds, Senator George F., 242. 

Education, in the colonies, 33, 34, 54, 
56, 58; gifts for the advancement 
of, 268; the public-school system, 
270; colleges and universities, 270, 
271; industrial and trade schools, 
271, 272. 



294 



INDEX 



Education Board, the Cieneral, 2(18. 

Edwards, Jonathan, leader of the 
"Great Revival," 53, 56. 

Electricity, uses of, 238, 23Q. 

Eliot, Dr. Charles VV., quoted, 2^6, 
238, 273. 

Elizabeth, (,)uccn, of Ent;Iand, 10, 
18, ig, 20, 22. 

Embargo act, the, 119, 120. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his poems, 
165; his essays, 168. 

Endicott, John, 2q. 

Eric th," Red, voyage of, 4. 

Ericsson, John, inventor of the screw 
propeller, 147. 

Erie Canal, the, 127, 128, 130. 

Essex, the, American ship, 123. 

Estaing, Count d', 74. 

Everett, Edward, 156. 

Exports from the United States, 115, 
116, 120, 144; agricultural, 150; 
of foodstuffs, 282; valucof,in iqi r, 
286; value of iron and steel ex- 
ports, 287. 

Farms in the United States, \-alue of, 
279; value of products of, 150, 
279, 280; 2S2. 

Farragut, Admiral David G., 192, 
196, 198. 

Federalists, the, 94; win first elec- 
tion, 9s; birth of the Federalist 
party, 97, 98; its decline, 98-102; 
annihilation of, 126. 

Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain, 
12. 

Field, Cyrus W., and the Atlantic 
cable, 234. 

Fish, Hamilton, 220. 

Fisheries of the Atlantic coast, 286. 

Fisk, James, Jr., 216. 

Fiske, John, quoted, 94, 259 

Fitch, John, his steam-boat, 103, 
112. 

Flagg, Ernest, 264. 

Florida purchased from Spain, 135. 

Florida, the. Confederate cruiser, 
221. 

Forbes, General John, 45. 



Forrest, General N. B., 200. 

Francis I, king of France, 14, 16. 

Franklin, Benjamin, his Poor Rich- 
ard's Almanac, 56; 60; his views on 
independence, 65, 66; 74, 79; his 
project for a federal union, 84; 92. 

Frauds, political, 213, 214; among 
public officials, 216, 217. 

Freer, Charles L., 266. 

Fremont, John C., 136, 178. 

French and Indirn War, 36, 42-46. 

French, Daniel C, 262. 

Frick, Henry C, 266. 

Frolic, the, in sea fight, 123. 

Frontenac, Count, governor of New 
France, 43. 

Fugitive Slave law passed, 175, 178. 

Fuller, George, 262. 

Fulton, Robeit, and the Clermont, 
112. 

Furness, Horace Howard, his Vari- 
orum Shakespeare, 259. 

Gallatin, .\lberl, 107. 

Gardner, Mrs. John L., 266. 

Garfield, President James .A., 219. 

Garrison, ^^"illiam Llo3'd, 165, 173, 
174. ■ 

Gates, General Horatio, 72; defeat- 
ed at Camden, 76; 81. 

George HI, king of Fnj,land, 58; 
attitude of, toward the lolonies. 
59, 60, 62, 68. 

(jeorgia colon\', the, 52. 

General Amnesty bill, 213. 

Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration, 
award of, IQ4, 220. 

Germantown, battle of, 72. 

Gibbon, Edward, 165. 

Gilbert, Cass, 264. 

Goethals, Colonel George W., his 
work on the Panama Canal, 254. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, influence 
of, on American literature, 156. 

Gold, discovery of, in California, 
136; speculation in, 216; intrease 
in production of, 232; mined in 
the world in 1910, 283, 284. 

Gorman, Arthur P., 225, 226, 227. 



INDEX 



295 



Gould, Jay, and gold speculation, 
216. 

Grady, Henry W., quoted, 222. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., at Fort 
Donclson and Shiloh, igo; at 
Vicksburg, 190, 195; his Chatta- 
nooga campaign, 192; iq6; in 
the Wilderness campaign, 198; at 
Appomattox Court House, iqq; 
200, 202; the prey of unscrupu- 
lous schemers, 208, 214-217; 219, 
220, 221; his veto of the Inflation 
bill, 228, 229; 234. 

Grasse, Count dc, P'rcnch fleet 
under, sent to aid the colonists, 

78, 79- 

Gray, Captain Robert, discovery of 
the Columbia River by, no, in. 

"Great Revival," the, 53, 56. 

Greeley, Horace, 185, 196. 

Greene, General Francis V., cited, 
69. 

Greene, General Nathanael, suc- 
ceeds General Gates, 76. 

Gtierriere, the British frigate, 122, 
140. 

Hakluyt, Richard, the influence of 
the collected narratives of, 20. 

Hale, John P., 178. 

Half Moon, the, 27. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 92, 94; secre- 
tary of the treasury under Wash- 
ington, 96; his plans and financial 
policy, 96, 97; leader of the Fed- 
eralist party, 97, 98, 100. 

Hampden, John, 26. 

Harold Fairhair, king of Norway, 3. 

Harriman, Edward H., 244. 

Harrison, President Benjamin, 226, 
242. 

Harte, Bret, his short stories, 260, 
261. 

Hartford colony, the, 31. 

Hartford Convention, the, 126. 

Harvard College founded, t,^)^ S^- 

Harvard, John, 29, 33. 

Hastings, Thomas, 264. 

Havemeyer, Mrs. Wm. T., 266. 



Hawaiian Islands, annexation of, 
253- 

Hawkins, Sir John, iS. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his The Scar- 
let Letter, 157, 160; other works 
of, 160. 

Hay, John, 253. 

Hayes, President Rutherford B., 
221. 

Henry, Patrick, 64. 

Henry, Prince, of Portugal, his 
school of navigators, 6, 7. 

Henry VH, king of England, 10. 

Henry VHI, king of England, iS. 

Hepburn, A. Barton, 232. 

Higginson, Henry L., 267. 

Hifl, David B., 225, 226. 

Hill, James J., 244. 

Hill, Joseph A., 275. 

Holmes, 01i\XT Wendell, 161; es- 
says of, 166. 

Homer, Winslow, 262. 

Hood, General John B., 198, 200. 

Hooker, General Joseph, 1S8, 1S9, 
192. 

Howard, Lord, of Elfingham, gov- 
ernor of \'irginia, ^,1. 

Howe, Elias, invents the sewing- 
machine, 135. 

Howe, General George Augustus, 45. 

Howe, General Sir William, 65, 69, 
12, 74, 76; _ 

Howells, William D., literary career 
of, 261. 

Hudson, Flenry, expedition of, 27. 

Hughes, Justice Charles E., 245. 

Huguenots, massacre of, in Florida, 
16, 18. 

Hull, Captain Isaac, 122. 

Hull, General William, his surrender 
to Brock, 124. 

Hunt, Richard AI., 264. 

Huntington, Collis P., 266. 

Hutchinson, Ann, 30. 

Immigration to the United States, 
its causes and the quality of, 132; 
increase in, 134, 276; destination 
of, 134, 277; nationalities repre- 



296 



INDEX 



sentcd, 276; percentage of foreign 
element in dififerent states, 277. 

Imports of the United States, 115, 
144,150; of foodstuffs, 282; vakie 
of. in 1911, 286. 

Indians, origin of tlie name, 8; 
Dutch and English alliance with 
the Five Nations of, 32, ,5,3, ,36, 3S; 
French alliance with the Algon- 
quin, ss, 35. 36, 38; in King 
William's War, 43; in Queen 
Anne's War, 43, 44; campaign 
against the Seminole, 135. 

Inflation bill, the. Grant's veto of, 

221, 228, 22Q. 

Inness, George, 262. 

Institutions, gifts to, 264, 268, 270. 

Interstate Commerce law, the, 240, 
246. 

Inventions, the cotton-gin, 102; 130, 
134, 13s, 147, 238, 239. 

Iron, production of, 283, 287. 

Irving, Washington, his Knicker- 
bocker History of AVw York, 27, 
157; quoted, 156; his Sketch-Book, 
and other works of, 157, 159; 162. 

Jackson, President Andrew, in the 
battle of New Orleans, 124; in 
Seminole War, 135; and the new 
Democracy, 137; 139. 

Jackson, General T. J. ("Stone- 
wall "), 188, 200, 202. 

James, Henry, his novels and stories, 
260. 

James, William, his contributions 
to psychology, 260. 

James I, king of England, 47. 

Jameson, Leander Starr, 235. 

Jamestown, Va., settlement of, 22, 

24, 36- 

Java, the, British frigate, 122. 

Jay, John, 94, 98; quoted, 212. 

Jay Treaty, the, 98, 99. 

Jefferson, Thomas, quoted on the 
object of the war, 66; elected 
Vice-President, 95; leader of the 
Republican party, 97, 98, 100; 
inauguration of, as President, 105; 



his purchase of Louisiana, 105, 
106, 107, 108; his love of peace, 
106, 107; organizes Lewis and 
Clark expedition, 109; his action 
against the Barbary pirates, 112; 
114; attitude of, toward the 
merchant marine, 117; 119, 120, 
138, 169. 

Jewett. Sarah Orne, 261. 

Johnson, President Andrew, 212. 

Johnson, John G., 266. 

Johnston, General A. S., 190, 200, 
202. 

Johnston, General Joseph E., 188, 
192, 198, 200. 

Joliet, Louis, reaches the Mississipni, 

38. 
Jones, Paul, his capture of the Sera- 
pis, 80. 

Kansas-Nebraska act, the, 176, 177, 

182. 
Kentucky resolutions of 1798, the, 

100. 
King William's War, 43. 
Kingslev, Charles, his Westward Ho.', 

iS. 
Kip's Bay, battle of, 6g. 
Kirk, David, 42. 
Knox, Philander C, 253. 
Ku Klux Klan, the, 210. 

Labor problems, 28g. 

La Farge, John, 262, 2O4. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, 81. 

Lake Chami)lain, Macdonough's vic- 
tory on, 124. 

Lake Erie, Perry's v'ictory on, 124. 

Lanier, Sidney, 262. 

La Salle, Robert de, explorations of, 
38, 40; establishes French claim 
to the water-shed of the Missis- 
sippi, 40. 

Laud, Archbishop, 26, 31. 

Laudonniere, Rene de. Huguenot 
leader, 16. 

Ledyard, John, i 10. 

Lee, Arthur, 74. 

Lee, Charles, treachery of, 74, 81. 



INDEX 



297 



Lee, Richard Henry, 27. 

Lee, General Robert E., 188, 192; 

surrender of, to General Grant, 

iqq; 200, 202, 206. 
Leif Ericsson, discovery of Vinland 

by, 4. 5- 

Leopard, the, 122. 

Lesseps, Ferdinand de, founder of 
French Panama Company, 253. 

Lewis, Meriwether, expedition of, 
108, no, III. 

Lincoln, President Abraham, 159; 
debates of, 180, 182; elected 
President, 182, 183; his appeal 
for preservation of the Union, 185, 
186; dominating figure in Civil 
War, 187; 192, 193; influence of 
his Emancipation Proclamation, 
194; re-elected, 196, 198; assas- 
sination of, 206; character of, 206, 
207; 212, 223, 289. 

Lincoln, General Benjamin, defeated 
at Charleston, 76. 

Literature in the United States, 155 
el seq., 258 et seq. 

Livermore, Thomas L., his Numbers 
and Losses in the Civil War in 
America, 203, 204, 206. 

Livingston, Robert R., 64, 106, 
112. 

Lodge, Senator Henry Cabot, 
quoted, 97. 

London Times, the, quoted, 144. 

Long Island, battle of, 69. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, the 
poetry of, 164; 168. 

Louis XIV, king of France, 40, 42. 

Louis XV, king of France, 42. 

Louisburg, capture of, 44. 

Louisiana purchase, the, 105, 106, 
107, 108. 

Lounsbury, Thomas R., 158, 259. 

Lowell, A. Lawrence, his The Govern- 
ment of England, 260. 

Lowell, James Russell, the poetry of, 
162, 164; his essays, 168, 177. 

McClellan, General George B., 188, 
as a commander, 189; 198, 199. 



McCormick, Cyrus Hall, inventor 
of reaping machine, 135. 

McCunn, Judge, 216. 

Macdonough, Commander Thomas, 
victory of, in the battle of Lake 
Champlain, 124. 

McKay, Donald, Boston ship- 
builder, 149. 

McKim, Charles F., 264. 

McKinley, President William, 232, 
24s; and the war with Spain, 249; 

2 53- 

McMaster, John B., 259. 

MacMonnies, Frederick, 262. 

Macedonian, the, British frigate, 
122. 

Madison, President James, 27, 92, 
94; joins the Republican party, 
97, 100, 107; attitude toward the 
merchant marine, 117; 120, 122, 
138, 169. 

Magellan, Ferdinand, voyage of, 12, 

13- 

Mahan, Admiral A. T., quoted, 252; 
260. 

Maine, the, destruction of, 249. 

Manufacturing industries, 138; re- 
markable growth of, 278, 279. 

Marquette, James, reaches the Mis- 
sissippi, 38. 

Marshall, John, Virginia jurist, 27, 
107. 

Martin, Homer, 262. 

Maryland colony, the, settlement 
of, 28; royal authority in, 51; 52. 

Mason, James M., in the Trent af- 
fair, 193. 

Massachusetts Bay colony, the, 24, 
26, 29, 30, 31, ii, 47, 48, 5°. 52, 
62, 64, 84. 

Mayflower, the, 24, 26. 

Meade, General George G., 192, 200. 

Mercator, Gerard, his map of 1541, 

II, 13- 
Merchant marine, the American, 98, 
114, 117-120, 144, 148, 150, 152, 

IS3- 
Merrimac, the, results of fight of, 
with the Monitor, 195. 



298 



INDEX 



Mc.xiian Wat, 1^5, 136. 

Millet, Frank D., 264. 

Milton, John, 30. 

Mineral resources of the United 

States, 283, 284. 
Missouri Compromise, 173, 176, 181. 
Mobile Bay, battle of, iq6. 
JMonetary Commission, the National, 

233- 
Monitor, ths, results of fight of, with 

the Mcrrimac, 195. 
Monmouth, battle of, 74, 76. 
Monroe Doctrine, 139, 140, 1^,^, 234, 

235- 
Monroe, President James, 27, 106, 

138, 139- 
Montcalm, General Marc(uis dc, 45. 
Montezuma II, 14. 
Montreal, fall of, 45. 
Morgan, Daniel, 76. 
Morgan, J. Picrpont, gifts of, 26.'), 

268. 
Morse, Professor S. F. B., and the 

telegraph, 135. 
Motley, John Lothrop, 165; his 

Rise of the Diilcli Rcpiihlir and 

History of the United Xetherla>ids, 

166. 
Music, increased interest in, 26O, 

267. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 105, 106, 107, 
108, 124. 

Napoleon III, 194. 

Navigation laws, 50. 

Necessity, Fort, Washington defeat- 
ed at, 44. 

Negro slave labor, introduced, 24; 
83, 93, 103, 138; attitude of South 
toward, 169; African slave trade, 
170; the domestic trade, 171; 172; 
anti-slavery crusade, 173-175; 
turning-iioinl 'n history of slavery, 
176, 177; 178; Dred Scott case, 
180, 181, 1S2; Emancipation 
Proclamation, 194; negro suf- 
frage, 200-213, 222. 

New Hampshire colony, the, 48. 

New Haven, colony, the, 31, 48, 84. 



New Jersey colony, the, ^2. 

New Netherland, Dutch occupation 

of, 27, 28, 34; royal governors in 

New York, 48. 
New Orleans, battle of, 124; ca])t- 

ure of, 192, 195. 
Newspai)ers, in the colonies, 56; 

printed on cylinder presses, 135. 
Niagara, Fori, 45. 
Nicollet, Jean, 38. 
IVina, the, Columbus's ship, 8. 
Non-intercourse law, the, 120. 
North, Lord Frederick, 59; his bills, 

62. 

Oglethorpe, Governor James, of 

Georgia, 52. 
Olaf, king of Norway, 4. 
Clney, Richard, secretary of stale, 

234- 
Ordinance of 1787, the, 88-90. 
Oregon, the, its voyage around Scnilh 

America, 250, 253. 

Pacilic Mail Company, the, 147, 
148. 

Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 12, 13. 

Page, Thomas Nelson, 261. 

Paine, Thomas, his Common Sense, 
70. 

Painters and sculptors, 262. 

Panama Canal, the, 250, 253, 254. 

Panic of 1837, 138, 139; of 1873, 
218, 219; of 1893, 231, 232; of 
1907, 232. 

Paris, Comte d; , (|Uoted, 192. 

Parkman, I'Van, is, 165; his Cali- 
fornia and Orei^on Trail and Con- 
spiracy of Pontiae, 166. 

Peabody, George, bequests of, 268. 

Peary, Commander, arctic explora- 
tions of, 273. 

Pemberton, General John C., 100. 

Pendleton Civil Service law, the, 

23(>. 

Pendleton, Fdmund, 27. 
Penn, William. 28, 31, 7,2, 51. 
Pennsylvania Railway Station, the. 
274. 



INDEX 



299 



Pennsylvania colony, the, settle- 
ment of, 28, 29; proprietary gov- 
ernment in, 51; 52. 

Pennsylvania, University of, found- 
ed, 56. 

Pension legislation, 226, 227. 

Pepperell, Sir William, captures 
Louisburg, 44. 

Perry, Oliver Hazard, his victory on 
Lake Erie, 124. 

Petroleum, production of, 283. 

Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, 
262. 

Philip II, king of Spain, 12, 16, 18. 

Philippine Islands, United States 
ownership of, 252, 2^3. 

Phillips, Wendell, 185/" 

Phips, Sir William, royal governor of 
Massachusetts, 52. 

Pha'be, the, British frigate, 123. 

Pierce, President Franklin, 176, iSo. 

Pike, Captain Zebulon Montgomery, 
expeditions of, iii. 

Pilgrims, the, 24, 26. 

Piiita, the, Columbus's ship, 8. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, suc- 
cess of his plan of operations 
against the French, 44, 45; 59, 60. 

Pittsburg Landing, battle of, igo. 

Pizarro, Francisco, his conquest of 
Peru, 13.. 

Plymouth colony founded by the 
Pilgrims, 24, 26, 84. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 156, 157; the tales 
of, 159, 160, 162. 

Political reforms, 28S. 

Polo, Marco, effect of his tales of 
travel, 6, 8. 

Pontiac, conspiracy of, 46. 

Pope, General John, 188, 189. 

Population, growth of, in the col- 
onies, 51; increase in, 103, 116, 
130, 132, 137, 275; westward 
movement of centre of, 104, 127, 

130, 132, 136, 137- 
Porter, Commander Da^id D., 192. 
Post, George B., 264. 
Preble, Captain George Henry, and 

the Barbary pirates, 112. 



Prescott, William H., historical writ- 
ings of, 165, 166. 

Princeton, battle of, 70, 72. 

Princeton, the, warship, 147. 

Princeton University founded, 56. 

Privateers, American, 79, 80; rav- 
ages of, 125. 

Pulitzer, Joseph, bequests of, 270. 

Puritans, the, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 

52, 53. 54- 
Pym, John, 26. 

Quakers, the, 28, 30, 31. 
Quebec, founded by Champlain, 36; 
under English rule, 40, 42; fall of, 

45- 
Queen Anne's War, 43, 44. 

Railroads in the United States, 130, 
209; increase in building of, 218, 
241; great railway corporations, 
219, 220, 241, 242, 244. 

Randall, Samuel J., 225. 

Randolph, John, 27. « 

Ranken, David, Jr., gift of, 268. 

Rawdon, Lord, 78. 

Reconstruction act, the, 210, 212. 

Religious worship in America, 29 
et scq.; progress toward greater 
freedom in, 52, 53, 54, 83, 84, 
89. 

Republican party, the, 97-100; ori- 
gin of, 178; 180, 183, 196, 198, 
199, 209, 212, 214, 220, 221, 223; 
and the tariff, 224 el seq. 

Revolutionary War, 6g-8i; condi- 
tions at the close of, 82 el seq. 

Rhode Island colony, the, 48. 

Rhodes, James Ford, his history of 
the United States, 250. 

Ribaut, Jean, Huguenot leader, 
16. 

Richardson, H. H., 264. 

Riley, James Whitcomb, 262. 

Ringmann, Matthias, 11. 

Roads, 127; the Cumberland Road 
constructed, 127, 128. 

Rockefeller, John D., gifts of, 268. 

Rolfe, John, 22. 



300 



INDEX 



Roosevelt, President Theodore, his 
Naval War oj 1812, 123; civil ser- 
vice reforms of, 236; his action 
regarding trusts, 245-248; and the 
Panama Canal, 253; his services 
to the nation, 256, 257. 

Roosevelt dam, the, 274. 

Royal governors, the colonies under, 

48, 50. 51- 
Rutgers College founded, 58. 
Rutgers, Henry, his name given to 

Queen's College, 58. 
Ryswick, the peace of, 43. 

St. Augustine, founded, 1565, 18. 

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 262. 

Salisbury, Lord, 235. 

Sampson, Admiral William T., 250. 

Santa Maria, the, Columbus's ship, 8. 

Saratoga, battle of, 72. 

Sargent, John S., 262, 264. 

Saybrook Synod, the, ecclesiastical 
system adopted by, 53. 

Schouler, James, 259. 

Schuyler, Philip, 64. 

Scott, Sir Walter, influence of, on 
American literature, 156, 157, 158. 

Scott, General Winfield, 135. 

Seamen, American, British impress- 
ment of, 117 et seq., 140; enter- 
prise of, 141. 

Serapis, the, captured bv Paul Jones, 
80. 

Seven Years' War, the, 42. 

Seward, William H., 178; and the 
Trent affair, 193; his purchase of 
Alaska, 233, 234. 

Shannon, the, British frigate, 123. 

Shays, Daniel, rebellion of, 90. 

Shenandoah, the, Confederate cruiser, 
221. 

Sheridan, General Philip H., 192, 
198, 200. 

Sherman Anti-trust bill, 240, 241, 
242, 243, 248. 

Sherman Silver Purchase bill, the, 
230. 231, 234. 

Sherman, General William T., 192, 
196, 198, 200, 202. 



Ship-building, 141 et seq.; the Yan- 
kee packet ship, 142, 144; the 
American clipper ships, 149, 150; 
free materials for, 153, 154. 

Shipping, American, in foreign trade, 
114, 115; indignities suffered by, 
1 17-122; activity in, 141 et seq.; 
tonnage figures of, 148, 149; 
causes of decline in, 152, 153; 195. 

Silver, production and coinage of, 

229, 230; legislation in favor of, 

230, 231; end of free silver agita- 
tion, 232. 

Silver Purchase bill, the, see Sher- 
man. 
Simmons, Edward, 264. 
Slidell, John, in the Trent atTair, 

193- 
Sloane, William M., 259. 
South, the, economic changes in, 138; 

slavery in, 169 et seq.; secession 

in, 182 (■/ seq.; conditions in, after 

the war, 199, 200; prosperity in, 

284, 286. 
Spanish- American War, 156; effects 

of, 243; causes of, 248, 249; two 

military lessons of, 250. 
Spotswood, Alexander, 50. 
Stamp Act, the, 60. 62, 64, 65. 
Standard Oil case, the, 240, 246, 248. 
St.eani-boats, 103, 112, 146, 147. 
Stedman, Edmund C, 161. 
Steers, (Jeorge, 147. 
Stephens, Alexander H., 183, 184. 
Stephenson, CJeorge, inventor of the 

locomoti\'e, 130. 
Steuben, Baron, 81. 
Stoddard, Richard H., 262. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 158; her 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 161, 178. 
Stuart, General J. E. B., 188, 200, 

202. 
Stuyvesant, Peter, governor of New 

Nctherland, 34. 
Sullivan, Louis H., 264. 
Sumner, Senator Charles, 178; as- 
sault of Brooks upon, 180, 181; 

212. 
Sumter, Fort, attack upon, 186, 187. 



INDEX 



301 



Supreme Court decisions, the Dred 
Scott case, 180, 181, 182; Stand- 
ard Oil Company case and Amer- 
ican Tobacco Company case, 240, 
246, 248. 

Swinburne, Algernon C, quoted, 161. 

Taft, President William H., and 
civil service reform, 236; 248, 253. 

Tammany Hall under Tweed, 213, 
214, 216. 

Tariff, legislation, 137, 138; Payne- 
Aldrich bill, 153, 227, 228; re- 
forms in^ 223 et scq.; Morrill bill, 
224; Morrison bill, 225; Mills 
bill, 226; Wilson bill, 226, 227; 
McKinley bill, 226, 227; Dingley 
bill, 227, 243. 

Tarleton, Colonel Banastre, 76. 

Taylor, General Zachary, 135. 

Texas, independence of, 135; ad- 
mitted to Union, 136. 

Thomas, Augustus, 267. 

Thomas, General George H., 192, 
200, 202. 

Ticknor, George, 156. 

Ticonderoga, Fort, 45. 

Tobacco culture, development of, 
22; exports of, 116. 

Toombs, Robert, 183. 

Toscanelli, Paolo del Pozzo dei, Ve- 
netian astronomer and geogra- 
pher, 7, 8. 

Townshend acts, the, 62. 

Townshend, Charles, 59. 

Treaty, of commerce and alliance 
with France, 74; of 1783 with 
England, 79; of 1794 with Eng- 
land, 98, 99; of Washington, 220. 

Trent, the, affair, 193. 

Trenton, battle of, 70, 72. 

Trusts, 240 et seq.; dangers of, 245, 

257- 
Turner, C. Y., 264. 
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), his 

Life on the Mississippi River, Tom 

Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, 

258, 260. 
Tweed, William M., 213, 214, 216. 



United States, the, United States 
frigate, 122. 

Valley Forge, Washington at, 74. 

Vasco da Gama, Portuguese naviga- 
tor, voyage of, 8. 

Vedder, Elihu, 262. 

Venezuela boundary dispute, 139, 
234-236, 250. 

Verrazzano, Giovanni da, voyage of, 

14- _ 

Vespucci, Amerigo, expeditions of, 
II. 

Vicksburg, capture of, 190, 192, 195. 

Victory, the, 195. 

Vikings, origin of the name, 3; voy- 
ages of, 4, 5. 

Virginia colony, the, 22, 24, 26, 27, 
29 et seq.; royal governors in, 48, 
50, 52; S3, 64. 

Virginia resolutions of 1798, the, 100. 

Waldseemiiller, Martin, 11. 

War of 1812, the, 11 7-1 26, 127, 140, 
141, 193. 

Ward, J. Q. A., 262. 

Warner, Olin L., 262. 

Washington, Fort, British capture 
of, 69. 

Washington, George, 27; defeated 
at Fort Necessity, 44; his views 
on independence, 66; at Dor- 
chester Heights and the battle 
of Long Island, 69; his victory at 
Trenton and Princeton, 70, 72; 
defeated in battles of the Brandy- 
wine and Germantown, 72; un- 
successful defense of New York, 
74; at Valley Forge, 74; at battle 
of Monmouth, 74; two strategic 
principles of , 75, 76- at Yorktown, 
78; character of, 80; his greatness 
in overcoming obstacles, 80, 81; 
his plan for a national system, 87; 
91, 92; chosen President, 95; 96, 
103, 108, 243. 

Wasp, the, in sea fight, 123. 

Webster, Daniel, quoted, 89; 175, 



302 



INDEX 



Wesley, Joliii, 5 :;. 

Whale-fisheries in New iMij^laiid, 114, 

145, 146. 
Wharton, Edith, 261. 
Wheelock, Rev. Eleazer, 58. 
Whi^s, the, origin of, 1 38. 
Whistler, J. A. MeN., 262. 
While, Stanford, 264. 
Whitcfield, George, ami the "Great 

Rexival," 53. 
Whitman, Walt, 2s8, 25c;. 
W'hitney, Eli, and the cotton-gin, 

102, 10,5, 115. 
Whittier, John Grcenleaf, the jjoetry 

of, 164, 16^. 
Widener, P. A. B., 266. 
Wilkins (Ereeman), I\Iar\' E., 

261. 
Wilkinson, General James, iii. 
William and Mar}', College of, 

founded, 56. 



William and Mary, sovereigns of 

ICngland, 42, 47, 48, 50. 
William Henrj', Eort, 45. 
Williams, Roger, 30, 32. 
\\ ilson, Henry, his Ri.sc and Fall of 

the Slave Poivcr in America, 171; 

178, 219. 
Winthrop, John, governor of Mas- 

saihiisetls. 31, 47, 52. 
Witehcrafl in Salem Village, 47. 
Wolfe, General James, 45. 
Woodberr\-, George I*;., his Appre- 
ciation of Literature and The 

Torch, 260; 273. 
Wright, Wilbur and Orvillc, and the 

aeroplane, 230. 
\\'yant, Alexander H., 262. 
Wyman, Isaac C., bequest of, 268. 

Vale Univcrsitj' founded, 56. 
Vorktown, victory at, 76, 78, 79. 



SEP 17 1912 



> <% 



' •..^.•.; 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




010 740 525 2 



'V'f 




•■ ■ ' , "^ I 






'*,M 



y:«* 









'■ \»''i:'^' 



